Cultivating Zen

Posted on by ghotiindustries

We have a special treat for you today ladies and gentlemen of the audience, that’s right, it’s a post from your favourite and mine, Himself! Give him a round of applause! *claps* And remember, if you treat him very nicely we may be able to convince him to come back for future posts too! *continues clapping* Take it away Himself!!!

Something I’ve wanted for a long time now, is a zen garden of my very own. Something I’ve not yet had, however, are the resources for a full-sized one – and now that we live in an apartment in Amsterdam, it’s going to be a while before we have the real-estate on which to build one of those.

Chance favouring the prepared mind and all that, I’ve mulled over the idea of a desktop version, because this is feasible here and now, and it’s a nicely low-commitment way to try out the idea. The web is a great source of inspiring pictures, so the trap was all set to spring when we wandered around the Osdorp Tuincentrum. Among the Christmas decorations, trains and ski-gondola rides, they just happened to have a bin of wooden trays about the right size and texture. Previous visits had just happened to draw our attention to the various types and colours of ground-mica decorative fillings, so I seized upon both. No zen garden is complete without a major feature of some kind, and your esteemed blog-host was resourceful enough to direct me to the aquarium section. The result was this: my very own improvised starter-kit.

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The next thing to do, obviously, is combine them and then reveal just how limited my creative streak really is! Would you like to know more?

A Visitor

Posted on by ghotiindustries

There was an unexpected visitor. He/She/It arrived on Friday night, and the first Himself and I knew about it was when Edgar was toying with him. I’m afraid it has finally happened. We’ve had in our apartment our first Amsterdam mouse. We always thought they wouldn’t be stupid enough to come into our apartment because of the smell of the cats. But it seems we were mistaken.

Edgar cornered Mickey, and Himself and I went into action to try and get him captured. We bailed him up inside the facing of the wardrobe, intent on purchasing baits and traps the next day up at the local garden centre. (We’d seen baits here on previous visits, so it was as good a place as any to start.)

As we walked through the car-park we got a hint that two weekends to Giftmas may have been the wrong time to go to the local Garden Centre. It was PACKED with families and their dogs. It was also done over to make the most of the season.

Upon entrance you could see the small live fir trees lining the pathway, but there was also a very distinct sound, and some suspicious giggling coming from around a blind corner. As we looked at each other and tried to convince ourselves that it couldn’t possibly be true, we rounded the corner to be confronted with a train and children riding it.

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But that was nothing compared to what was around the NEXT corner! Would you like to know more?

Gezellig

Posted on by ghotiindustries

Those of you following along from my last post will remember how I said that I wanted to complete a full circuit of the market before indulging in the gluhwein that was on offer. I’m sure all my highly intelligent readers can see the foreshadowing in this scenario.

Yes. By the time we got back to the wine truck, they were out of gluhwein, and would not have any more available for another half an hour! I think if I’d suggested that we wait for another half hour before imbibing something hot, Himself would have become violent (if he wasn’t too frozen to move).

Being that this is Amsterdam, we decided the best course of action was to find ourselves a traditional Dutch café in which to place ourselves for a while to defrost. We ended up at the Café Lusthof.

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Dutch Brown Cafés are all over, and you can almost walk down any street and find one. Would you like to know more?

Museumplein Markt

Posted on by ghotiindustries

Once Sinterklaas has visited the Nederlands the Christmas trees and decorations come out with a vengeance!

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So do the Christmas markets. We put ourselves out there this weekend and headed off to the market in Amsterdam’s Museum Square. Would you like to know more?