Technical Difficulties Make Bad Bloggers

A long time between posts. I am a bad blogger.

In my own defence, it's a little tough to blog without a computer. I left mine back at Maurice's place in eastern Holland, thinking I would use (a) his Mac in Amsterdam and (b) Lia's Mac in Berlin and Prague.

What I didn't know was that in Amsterdam, Maurice and I would be staying in the itsy-bitsy, weensy attic maid's quarters of a six-story walk-up hotel that had its internet connection on the bottom floor, and the only way to connect (during a full moon) was to lie on your back on the hallway stairs with your computer screen facing down. (Maurice will say I'm exaggerating, but honestly, it was tricky.)

On the plus side, the room was right beside a canal. If you climbed onto your bed and hoisted yourself up to the window, you could almost see the water.

Why, you may ask, were we staying there? Well, here's a fact of traveling. Not everyone makes accommodation arrangements in the same way. I was coordinating with (first) Maurice and (secondly) Lia. Three different styles. My style: book months ahead and spend three full day searching hotel websites until you get the absolutely best value/area/ambience possible. Maurice's style, one week ahead: "The sun's shining. Let's go biking. Book anything! Who cares?" Lia's style, two days ahead: "Oh, um . . . I don't know exactly when I'll get to Berlin, Mom. I might be in Budapest tomorrow and maybe Bruges on Monday and . . ."

Not to mention when you're hiking up and down six flights of stairs all the time, you don't have a LOT of energy to blog. Me on Floor 3: "Why don't you just . . .  go ahead, Maurice? I'll . . . see you up there . . . this afternoon."

So! Amsterdam. Gosh, what a wonderful city. The canals. The bikes. The art. The people. I will post some gorgeous photos in my next blog, which will be (I hope) less whiny than this one.

Time Traveling in Holland

Weird day in Arnhem. We must have wandered into some kind of time warp.

We had hardly gotten started when we ran into a crowd of Dutch-style little people. Maurice, being Maurice, got into an argument with them.

My little toe, broken back home, was bothering me, so we called in at a medical clinic. The doctor was a handsome fellow, but his office could have used a bit of updating.

He told me to stay off the toe. Yeah, right. As we left, we passed the birth control clinic . . .

Moving on, we ran into a few of Maurice's new friends here in Holland:

One of them, he seemed to be particularly chummy with. Downright giddy to see her . . .

Well, of course, my toe was still bothering me, so we decided to rent bikes to get home. It was late in the day, so all of the more modern bikes were gone . . .

Basically, the whole day was a write-off. But not totally. There was still time for Maurice to do laundry when we got home.

Okay, truth. We spent the day at the Openluchtmuseum, meaning "open air museum" -- one of those historical re-creation kind of places. My favourite experience was the bike. Worst design ever. Except for that 10-speed racer I bought when I was 28. Yeah, I remember that bike. Today's bike was the second-worst design ever. 

Traveling in the Low Country . . .

So here it is. The definitive Dutch tourist photo. Riding bicycle, with windmill in background. I took the same photo last time I was here, in 1970.

So today I asked Maurice, "Are there any bad people in Holland?" I hate to generalize, but honestly, the people I meet in this area (Gelderland, eastern side) are just so damned NICE. Kind. Friendly. Cheerful. Hard-working. "Got any jails here?" I ask.

Maurice reminds me that in this little town where he lives (Beek), there have been two recent murders. One was a love triangle in which an unhappy policeman shot his wife and her lover. The other involved a Catholic priest and a Protestant minister. Nope -- not a religious dispute. The two lived together as lovers. Could this happen anywhere else?

And speaking of Dutch tolerance, take the feral cows and horses. This is a small country, heavily farmed. And yet it somehow tolerates the existence of roving herds of wild cows and horses in various preserves where they live off the fat . . . er, grass . . . of the land. They get into burr-and-bramble patches and come out with rastafarian hairdos:

Contradictions abound. Outside a beautiful 12th-century cathedral in Nijmegen sits a 1960s carving of a Moemen (devil). You can fit them into a single photo: 

One of the great boons of travel is to have one's own unexamined assumptions brought into question. Must do more of this!

Op de Zee in een Zeef

"Op de zee in een zeef!" That's Dutch (more or less) for "Going to sea in a sieve!" You've got to love a language that makes such happy uses of z's.

So, lucky me to have an October visit to Holland . . . and other European hot spots. (Cool spots? Note the rain jacket, purchased deliberately in a garish apple green so as not to be run over while riding a bicycle.)

I'm in the sweet little Dutch city of Nijmegen. Pronounced "Niy-may-(clear your throat)-en." It's almost on the border of Germany -- so close in fact, that the place where I'm staying still has schrapnel holes from World War II:

But back to the rain jackets and bicycles . . . I have rented a bike for a week for the great sum of 50 euros (about $63) and am trundling around the polders with Maurice. We brave heavy winds, hide from sudden downpours and try to ignore a broken baby toe (mine). Other than that, piece of cake. Here is Maurice, beside the pony that he is about to pat, and then later touch his face, thereby getting an allergic reaction that will make his eyelids swell up like raspberries. But being tough adventure travellers, we laugh at such hazards. Broken toes, pony allergies -- pah!

Sometimes when you are riding a bike in this part of Holland, you are suddenly in Germany and don't even know it. Here, for example, are some German ponies. At a casual glance, they look quite Dutch.

Sheep and cows also in abundance. Never a dull moment. Stay tuned . . . 

Why This Blog is Called "Going to Sea in a Sieve"

Edward Lear, king of nonsense, is best known for his poem "The Owl and the Pussycat." Great poem, for sure, but not my favourite. My vote for best Lear poem goes to the wonderfully absurd "The Jumblies." 

Here's the plot. 

A troop of odd little creatures (green heads, blue hands) decide to go to sea in a sieve. Their craft isn't exactly sea-worthy, and the Jumblies make things worse by choosing to set sail on a winter's morn, on a stormy sea. Their friends quite sensibly warn them of the danger.

Do the Jumblies listen? Not for a second. As Lear blithely advises, "they don't care a button, they don't care a fig."

The next part's predictable. "The water it soon came in, it did, the water it soon came in." Surely the Jumblies will get nervous now? Well, actually, no. They come up with an interesting and original response, which is to wrap their feet in pinky paper all folded neat and fasten it down with a pin. I know -- doesn't sound like much. But guess what? It actually works! And they pass the night in a crockery-jar and somehow find themselves, astonishingly, en route to to the Western Sea.

"And each of them said, 'How wise we are!
Though the sky be dark, and the voyage be long,
Yet we never can think we were rash or wrong,
 While round in our Sieve we spin!"

I'll skip to the chase. Everything works out FINE. They travel to the Lakes and the Torrible Zone and have scads of adventures and "no end of Stilton cheese." Twenty years later, they sail home, and their stay-at-home friends are so impressed that they vow to go to sea in a sieve themselves.

Okay, so what's my point? My point is that I adore this poem, and after spending too much time trying to figure out why, I think I've got it. I think it's because being a writer — and especially trying to make one's living as a writer — has a lot in common with a Jumblie journey. Each time you begin a new a book, you head out to sea in a sieve. Each time you submit to a publisher, each time your work is exposed to review . . . you set sail again with only a bit of pinky paper, folded neat, to keep you afloat. Seas are stormy. Water comes in. But if you're lucky and paddle hard for twenty years or more, you may get to visit the Hills of the Chankly Bore — and come back to tell the tale.

I love this poem because the Jumblies are — in spite of all odds — so determined. So cheerfully cocky. I love it that when their neighbours predict dire fates, they don't care a button or a fig. They sail away to places unknown. They believe it will all work out, and — wow! — it does.

The Jumblies are my literary heroes. They ought to have a blog named after them. Right?