Tired But Content - How are You?

This is the day after the night before...
And I am winding down after a hectic week at work and the birthday party for my kids. 
We had fun, our friends ate all the kebab with saté sauce, and the mess was minimal (always nice).

So what did I do today? I cleared that minimal mess in the house and then spent some peaceful hours in the garden clearing out the weeds from in between our cobbles.

See the difference?

This is my mindfulness exercise which I practice numerous times every Spring. If I do this a couple of hours every day, I will have cleared the entire garden in two weeks.

Many of our acquaintances have pronounced us MAD. But we like our cobbles. They are old-fashioned, and have been salvaged from the old road which used to run from Hellevoetsluis to Den Briel before it was tarred. 

I was too tired to do more cooking, so went to get a take-away, and look what I found on the little square where the local chippy is:

Honestly. Some people have a weird idea of fun... There's bikes in every tree, can you see?

Right.

Time to have another cup of tea and some left-over cake.

See you!

Happy Birthday to You

Today is the day we celebrate the birth of the two most important people in my life.
My kids.
21 Years ago and 17 years ago they were born, both in April and both after months of fear and uncertainty. (Not to mention pain)
But there they were, and here they are :-)

Love you both to the Moon and Back!!

My birthday wish for you two (The Beatles, but by WOTE)

Calm and Peace - still looking...

Hi there!
How are you today?
I have been looking for serenity today, as I promised you yesterday.
My days at school can hardly be called calm and peaceful....so I have been searching elsewhere. And I have found you this:

The next best thing I found today in the serenity department!

Isn't it lovely?!
Someone from India, who is a regular reader of this blog, wrote me that it brought tears of joy to her eyes. You're welcome, Smitha dear :-)

Apart from that, I tried to find some serenity on the Tube, but no...could not find it there.
I searched for it in school...But no.
The closest I came to serenity was this morning, at 7.30, when I saw the sun trying to come up through the fog over Coolhaven (Rotterdam), and the gulls were quiet for a change, and there were hardly any people around, and the world seemed fresh and innocent.

Have a lovely and serene evening!

Serenity

Good evening, my good people.
In my country there is a magazine called Happinez. It is a very popular magazine, about mindfulness and everything new age and a bit of zen and yoga. I read it with pleasure, for it has such a lovely layout and beautiful photography besides interesting articles.
The latest issue has an article about Sri Swami Sivananda and his "18 ity's" song. And Happinez has set us an assignment. Or rather a challenge. Work through those 18 ities, one a week,  and describe what they do to/with you.

I like a good challenge; so here it is.

The 18 ities are: serenity, regularity, absence of vanity, sincerity, simplicity, veracity, equanimity, fixity, non-irritability, adaptability, humility, tenacity, integrity, nobility, magnanimity, charity, generosity and purity.

What is serenity? 

The word serene means calm and peaceful.

The first image that comes to mind is of a calm landscape, without wind or people.

Still waters, empty views, the only sound that of birds or of a lazy bee, and it depends very much on which birds. The urgent cawing of crows kills serenity as fast as a ghetto blaster sounding as a blast from the past, or the happy cries of children for that matter.

Children and serenity don't go together, except when they slumber.

Serenity is a trait often associated with religious people. Nuns, monks. Most of us cannot be called serene. Although very old people sometimes come close to it. Probably because they have accepted that the only thing left to them is letting go of all urgency.

Am I serene? No way! I often try to remain calm, but it feels like a calm in the eye of a storm. My life isn't peaceful, and never has been.

Would I like to 'have' some serenity? Certainly. It sounds like a good thing to experience. Perhaps, some day.

Meanwhile, I will try to find some serenity in the days to come. Since it's hard to find it within myself, I'll try to find it in life around me.

One of the places where I will look, is next to my pond. I'll have to filter out the sounds of street life outside my garden; revving engines, screaming kids, laughing neighbours, barking dogs, airplanes starting their descend to Rotterdam Airport. My frogs are allowed to sing though.

What I can attain, right now, is a serene picture.

Here you are.  Serenity.

Sunday...and Yet Another Glorious Day for the Garden.

Good afternoon, where ever you are :-)
I am in my garden - where else? It is my sanctuary, after all.

I watch it grow and change daily - what's that...hourly now.

See those bluebells? They remind me of England. I lived in Hampshire for 6 months, and the wood behind the farm where I worked as an underpaid and overworked (and poorly fed!) nanny was filled with them. When we got our own garden we planted a few of them and they have spread all over.

Do you like my allium? This one is in the greenhouse, the ones outside aren't as advanced yet.

I have been doing my mindfulness chore today...clearing out the grass and other seedlings from in between my cobbles. I do not mind this, although it did make me tear a nail today. I sit on my bum or alternately on my knees and listen to the bumblebees and the birds. Very restful!

More bluebells, but also my ferns. We dug out a young one 21 years ago in a wood (sssshhht, don't tell) and they have spread as well, with a little help from us.

Wallflowers, always sweet! We started out with one garden centre bought pink one, and now have them multi-coloured from pale yellow to deep purple and everything in between. They seed themselves, and take care of their colouring themselves as well, so it's always a surprise what we'll get each year.

Sweet eh? The pansies are at their peak at the moment, while the cornflowers are still tightly in bud.

Remember my tulips from last week?? Couldn't resist showing them off again. They are getting blowsy now...Last week for them. And the digitalis is shooting up, it already reaches up to my thigh.

Uhm...my shed needs repainting...Another mindfulness chore. I'll do that when I fancy doing it, probably in the summer holidays. The larger birds (jays, woodpecker, jackdaw) still visit the bird table, even though I have some decorations hanging there. They are not impressed.

I'll leave you with a professional photo, photographer unknown I'm afraid. Have a wonderful Sunday in the garden!!

How Important is Nature to You?

Hi there!
I noticed I now have some readers in Japan; oh...goody! Japanese people have something which interests me very much: shinto.
There is something extremely appealing to esthetic and natural beauty, uncluttered and pure.
And although I am not a religious person as such (I do not bow to any religion), I do feel amazed by the universe, its energy, and am very interested in what makes other people do bow to religious beliefs. And I feel overawed by nature.

Look at the pot above. It is in my favourite colour. But when I dream, I usually dream about green.

Green is probably in my genes, coming from The Wetlands, where rain is plenty and leaves and grass are abundant. When the grass starts growing in Spring, it lifts my spirit. When the trees lose their leaves in Autumn, I seem to dwindle as well. 

One of the predominant memories of my youth is walking through the woods near my childhood home, and looking up at the crowns of the trees, and watching the sunlight filtered through them, and hearing the cawing of the jackdaws who had made their nests there. I was completely and utterly at peace and happy there.

This photo is definitely NOT from my country; we do not have trees like that nor flowers like that. But it does evoke those memories for me. Peace. Natural beauty.

There you are. This IS in my country. I took this in Limburg, our most Southern province. And just by looking at this, I can call up the feeling of tranquility I felt when I walked past this post, watched the barbed wire put there to keep the cows in, and the wild campanula growing there. 

Travelling into Rotterdam every work day makes me appreciate my home environment even more. I live on the edge of suburbia; only 5 minutes walking and I am in the meadows and fields. They grow potatoes, fodder maize and grains near my house. But there are cows and horses there as well. And hares, partridges, pheasants, swans, ducks, geese, and lots of small birds and rodents. (The photo above isn't mine, by the way!)

This one is. Because when I walk the other way, only twenty minutes walking takes me to the sea arm called the Haringvliet, and these huge flowering plants grow there (they are 1 m high). I think they are gorgeous. 

Sure, I like the sea, and water, especially running water and waterfalls. But it is to the woods, trees, that my heart is drawn most.

How about you? How important is nature to you? And what do you prefer? Woods? Fields? Mountains? Desert? Sea? 

I will leave you with a little, beautiful film about nature. Enjoy!

Shinto

For All Photography Fans - New Website Launched for Wibe Koopman

If you have kids, or nieces and nephews you  are very fond of, you probably know the immense and intense feeling of pride that washes over you when they do something worthwhile.

Well, then you know how I feel right now!
 My son Wibe, studying and working hard to become a photographer, has launched his new website.
It is still under revision, and he needs to translate his biography etcetera, but it already gives an impression of the great things still to come.
Do take a look! The link is underneath this photo he took of me for a portrait assignment. It's one of the few existing formal photographs, since I am always (and always have been) the officious family photographer...

Wibe's new photography website