Almost 32,000 times read by "a Reader"... Whoopie!

When I started this blog three years ago, I never ever envisaged so many people reading my posts!
Starting out as 'me-therapy', this blog has evolved into a regular 'hi folks, so nice of you to join me in my life' and even more so into a 'hiya fans, Viggo here' romp.

I intend to keep it up.
So, I'll wish you a very lovely evening (the sun is out over here - always an event) and a good week!

Viggo's Blog - Me and My Mates.

Hiya fans, Viggo here.
Recovered from all those chocolate eggs and silly hares (which you call bunnies? I don't get it!)?

Anyway, what I wanted to tell you, is that I have mates, yeah?!
It took some time, and some nifty handling from my side, but nowadays I can chill with my friends.
The White Goddess is still unobtainable, so a cat's got to do what a cat's got to do, and thus I have searched for and found a circle of male buddies I can hang out with.
(My woman says we are all technically and strictly ex-males, but she's just jealous so pay her no mind)

This great guy lives on the corner and we have a lot in common, not in the least a dog in our house. His is a floppy soppy Golden Retriever. He was sitting on my woman's car here, hmmmm, not quite sure I like that....So I chased him off pronto and we rolled around on the pavement a bit.

This oldie (he's 15!) used to live in my house before his people moved to Bangkok and let their house to us, but has moved two doors down as those people are now looking after him. My woman said she would happily have taken him in, but thought it unfair to old Gina. Hah! She should have moved smelly Gina two doors down instead...

What?

Oh...

She's just told me off for being nasty about Gina. (But-it's-the-truth-she-smells-dog-breath-shhhh!)

This is Gina and me on our morning walk, this morning. Just to show you that we hop along nicely...My woman can really moan about nothing.

Would you know we actually saw a deer there? It was very early this morning (Gina has a weak bladder) and it stood about halfway. But as soon as my woman fumbled out her iPhone it jumped away. I swear we see more wildlife around that cemetery next to our house than next to the forest where we used to live. 

Okay, I'm going back to sleep now. Just wanted to show you my friends.

Tarah!

Oh...just to make you laugh...This is smelly Gina giving a doggie kiss to my woman. I don't mind that, rather her than me actually!

Haiku on Easter Monday

Prefer my hares

boxing rather than with eggs

in silly baskets

(and yes, I do believe this to be a rabbit)

The Lasses - Where An Impromptu Night Out Became Great.

When you, like me, average 25 concerts a year (not counting the festivals), it's easy to become a little jaded, a tad blasé. But once in a while I am pleasantly surprised.
Our annual Hellevoetsluis Celtic Festival has introduced me to gems like Sarah McQuaid and Albert Niland in the past, and this year it was the duo The Lasses.

The Lasses are Sophie Ter Schure and Margot Limburg, and they are down-to-earth in looks and approach, not an eyelash out of place whilst joining another singer on stage just for the hell of it, whilst waiting for their own performance. This "Oh, hey, let's sing along with this tune, as we know it anyway" whetted my appetite for their own set, for they out-sang their hostess..., so I hurried along to the secondary, tiny, stage where they were to sing their own list of traditional and original celtic songs.
They were to play three 30 minute sets and were quick to inform us they wouldn't be doing any doubling, good for them. And straight off, with their rendering of Bill Monroe's The One I Love Is Gone I was totally hooked.

Talk about voices blending gorgeously, made for each other. The guy who brought these two women together deserves a statue in front of the Amsterdam Irish Pub (Mulligans !) where they have regular music nights as far as I'm concerned.

So far they have produced two CDs: the first, simply called "The Lasses", with 11 tunes, ranging from the sweet traditional Next Market Day to the iconic Dougie McLean Caledonia to the wonderful Hole in the Heart by Karine Polwart (my favorite from this CD).

The second is called "Daughters" and it is a bit more elaborate, carrying 13 songs. And it is super. My favorite is Hush Hush (Jim McLean), a poignant lullaby remembering the forced emigration from the Scottish Highlands, where you can almost hear the sheep bleat and see the sad farewell on the people's faces. But I also love Stretched on Your Grave (Frank O'Connor and Philip King) with guest singer Victor Lacken, whose voice again blends in beautifully.

Obviously I will provide a link for your perusal:The Lasses with Cobbler's Daughter
(from their second album)

The Lasses with The One I Love Is Gone

Typical loud pub audience... sorry about that. But you'll get the gist.

Did I say too much? Nooooooo...did not, did not.
You can find The Lasses for yourself on www.thelasses.wordpress.com 
or 
mailthelasses@gmail.com
and...they are currently in The USA, I believe...

Spring Has Sprung in Nieuw-Helvoet.

Good morning you all, everywhere.
The predominant Spring colour around my house is yellow - but that's hard to see, so off-yellowish it is for my script...

Isn't it wonderful that the long, wet winter has almost passed? Today is the Spring Equinox, and our days are getting longer and the nights shorter and personally I cannot wait for those long evenings in the garden, wrapped up in a thick blanket (this is The Wetlands after all) as near to the fire pot as I can get without catching fire. The good thing about our Wetlands spring weather is that it keeps your beer/white wine nice and cool.

My new garden is a bit basic, but it does have some nice nettles... 
Last week I cut down the shrubs which needed cutting back, and I now have a neat pile of branches I need to get rid of. I tried to burn them, but they are too green to burn and my neighbours somehow didn't take to the smoke they produced... I'll have cut them in small pieces and give them to our garbage truck to take away, as this garden doesn't have room for a compost heap.

Do you know something, my cat Viggo has made friends with quite a few of the other cats in my street, and now wants to spend his nights out on the pavement, chilling with his mates. He has almost lost all the weight he put on whilst in confinement when we just moved house, and is very content.
I swear that every house in this street has at least one cat and most of them has at least one dog as well, and they all grin at me when I walk past with both my old dog Gina and cat Viggo in tow, except for one grumpy terrier who always needs to bark at us and makes me jump, as he hides behing the bushes and then runs out barking like the mad little dog he is.

All in all we are very happy here in our new part of town.
Hope this Sunday finds you happy as well.

Viggo's Blog: Yeah...Right!

Hiya fans, Viggo here.
How are you all this morning, feeling good and feisty?

As you can see, I am taking it easy after an eventful morning. Want to know what happened to me?
Well, first of all, it snowed! I was just waking up in my customary spot on the just heating up radiator in my woman's bedroom (it starts heating up at 6.30) when I spotted that white stuff falling from the sky. Obviously I woke her up, so that she could check it out as well.

Then, three paint-splattered men walked into my house, and walked out again (nothing doing, apparently), but who sneaked in as well? That red and white tom from down the block! He raced straight up to the attic, and my woman raced after him calling that he had no business in our house, and that he should get out, etcetera.

Within a minute she came down the stairs again with him hanging most unbecomingly from her arm. She has this trick of picking us up under our bellies, you see (hate it, hate it!), with her hand towards your face, and you cannot do anything, your muscles simply disobey you, your paws are hanging down on four sides of her arm and that's IT.
I once heard her explain this move: she told my young woman that she has picked up this trick from one of her very first cats, a black mother of six, who had the habit of carrying her young in her mouth all through the house apparently, and they just hung there, so she thought to try that herself. Well, why she doesn't try it in her mouth is beyond me (she has one), but anyway, it is so humiliating to just hang there as a grown cat!

And while we are on the subject of humiliation: I have spotted The White Goddess touching noses with that black bruiser from around the corner. What does he have that I do not?
My woman saw as well, and said not to fret, that he lived here first, and not to give up.
Yeah...Right!

Oh, btw, just to tell you that I heard my woman mumbling just now that apparently Google+ has done something to her account and that she can't get to her communities anymore? Didn't know she was in any other communities - I AM her community!

The Hike - 5

And here we are: I promised you a new installment on my prep towards a hiking holiday in the North of England, but I went a totally different way...Not to Goeree-Overflakkee, the next island over from my home, but down South to Dordrecht, a historic riverside harbour town of fame and ill repute both.

There's a famous Dutch saying: "Hoe dichter bij Dordt, hoe rotter 't wordt" (the closer you get to Dordrecht, the worse it gets)
To get to Dordrecht on the river Merwede, you can obviously take the crowded and slow-traffic plagued motorway, but a much better and enormously more fun manner is to drive to Rotterdam, park your car (which I do in the free parking outskirts and then take the tube in order to be able to eat for the rest of the month!), and hop on the ferry to Dordrecht right below the gorgeous bridge crossing the river Maas connecting the South to the North of Rotterdam.

See the ferry? It's called the Aqualiner and it will cost you approx. €9,00 and an hour to get to Dordrecht. No toilets or drinks on board; it's the equivalent of a town bus, but you are allowed to take your bike, moped, dog or skateboard and believe me, many people do.

It makes a few stops on the way, and at the first one in Krimpen a/d Lek we were met with this biblical view:

I wonder what Old Noah would have to say about this massive version of the ark. It actually sails as well. Crikey!

After an hour we were unloaded on the historical quay of Dordrecht, and the town has provided those handy signposts leading you to the town centre and even showing you a roundtrip walk taking in all the cobbled old streets and historical buildings.

Now, what about that rather nasty saying then?

We wondered if it was about the Dordrecht folk (who looked perfectly friendly to us), or about the water quality, or about politics.

After all, this is the town where the famous, but lynched by the mob, brothers/politicians De Witt came from.

I'm certain wonderful free Wikipedia won't mind me quoting it: 

Johan de Witt or Jan de Witt, heer van Zuid- en Noord-Linschoten, Snelrewaard, Hekendorp and IJsselveere^[3] (24 September 1625 – 20 August 1672) was a key figure in Dutch politics in the mid-17th century, when its flourishing sea trade in a period of globalization made the United Provinces a leading European power during the Dutch Golden Age. De Witt controlled the Netherlands political system from around 1650 until shortly before his death in 1672 working with various factions from nearly all the major cities, especially his hometown, Dordrecht, and the city of birth of his wife, Amsterdam. As a republican he opposed the House of Orange and, along with his brother Cornelis de Witt, was murdered by Orangists.

"Was murdered by" is putting it mildly...They were butchered - alive, their organs removed whilst still breathing, it is said.

It is also documented they were brilliant politicians, and I've often wondered what would have happened with the decline of the Golden Age had they not been lynched...

But the saying turns out to be about..soil conditions. Dordrecht is built on peat. And we all know the only thing peat is good for...

Dordrecht nowadays is known for its antiques shops and Christmas Fair. It took us all day to cross its ancient cobbles, and we were not sorry.

When the ferry had taken us back to Rotterdam, we chose to have dinner in one of my favorite spots: the Fenix Loods.

I have told you about this old warehouse filled with independent biological restaurants on Katendrecht island before, but I'll take every opportunity to tell you again. If you visit Rotterdam, GO THERE!

You'll find it opposite Hotel New York on the Kop van Zuid, and you only have to cross the pedestrian bridge to get there.

Oh, alright, the view:

This is as "Rotterdam-Harbour" as it gets!

Okay: down to the technical stuff.

It took me 18.536 steps, but it took my friend with her longer legs  more than 24.000, so whose iPhone was right, we wonder? Never mind, we had a great day, with hardly any rain and 5 degrees C.

Join me on my next hike?