On the road again

      My publisher is getting on my nerves again. She seems to get pressure from our small band of devotees. (not her words) What she does not seem to understand however is, that creative writing wells from down below.       Ofcourse, the fact that she is always there to coax me into new projects and that she takes me everywhere she goes, does not help in even finding time to consider digging into that below area of my creativism.       I thus need to tire her out to the extent that she desires to sleep a whole morning. These are the times I steal for myself doing stuff. Stuff like thinking about writing, or maybe doing picture editing on the 10,000 pictures our little safari team took in the two weeks we gawked at nature, or starting to set the framework for a road trip to New England next month, or beginning to project my nfl football pool picks. It is 10 years now that Sandee and I have been f...

We start with a come to Holland advertising campaign with these pictures   Is it the "us" muse      It is early Sunday morning and we are back in sweltering Norfolk. I have recently found out, what it feels like to have a publisher. A writer should just be able to wait for its muse to land on his/her shoulder and inspire him or her.  or a visiting muse?      But oh no, the reality is, that there is a nag, that tells you that there is such a thing as a "deadline". In my case, there is my lovely spouse (by the way  Could she be dreaming of more adventures? still in morpheus arms), who has in the last few weeks been "hinting". For those who know her, which in my case is every reader of my unimportant endeavours: "hinting" is a nice word, brought to you with  her smile, implying that I am way overdue in bringing you a variety of my Lady's pre-titled posts.      So her...

     The Dutch are celebrating Koninginnedag since 1885, starting with the 5th birthday of the popular princess Wilhelmina, although at that time it was called "Princessedag", as she only became Queen on her 18th birthday, when that day was ofcourse changed to "Queensday".      The reader must realize that the Dutch are anything but royalists by nature. As soon as we shook off the shackles of the Spanish royal tyranny in 1581, we became a constitutional republic (a lot of the US constitution is based on the Dutch and French versions). We still claim to be "the oldest republic" in the world. In doing so one has to ignore the anomaly of San Marino, (whoever heard of them?) which was declared independent from the Roman empire in 301. And to be candid, we continued in 1813 the Monarchy that Napoleon forced on us in 1806, effectively ending our Republic.      Anyway our mindset is still republic-minded, while t...

     Most of you now know, that we are aspiring culinarians, which is an uppity word for cooks. During the wedding ceremonies in Amsterdam our guests presented us with a coupon to enjoy a dining experience in the 33rd best restaurant in the world, at least so voted in 2011.      The Librije (phonetically - Lee-bray-ye) situated in a sleepy town in the eastern part of the Netherlands called Zwolle is one of two three star Michelin restaurants in this country. The there reigning chef Jonnie Boer and his front of the house sommelier wife Therese dabble with success in molecular adventures for one's palate and she provides beautiful matching wines.      Their restaurant has 40 seats in the remainder of a former castle, which is packed every day with guests who are eager to shell out whatever it takes to have the dining experience of their life. A few lucky ones can descend to the catacombs below and watch from the che...