Some prose and Skywatch Friday

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More pictures? Check my Flickr page

Every SWF-picture published here is shot with my trusty Google Pixel 4a smartphone and unedited, unless stated otherwise.

 

For more Skywatch Friday photo's from around the globe, please check http://skyley.blogspot.com/

It's been a while (nine years?) and I miss the Skywatch community. In the meantime I started weekly posting a short story or a poem. "So why not do both?" I asked myself. And here I am.

How 're all you lovelies doing in your parts of the world?

This is my last SWF post before I leave for Belgium for three months. No doubt I will see some interesting skies. With luck I will be able to share some of them with you. 

Saturday I was at a party. At the houseboat of a friend. This was the view:

This windmill at the front of her house is next to the brewery where I used to work:

Tuesday I was in Heiloo to get reunited with a couple of school mates from some 40 years ago:

Well worth the hour-and-a-half journey!

Wednesday I went to Santpoort. Via Amsterdam-Sloterdijk trainstation

It cost me two days to find my elf costume because I'm not used to be asked to wear it in May. But it was well worth it! 'Santa' and I were colleagues around 2004 and it was nice to be acting in a commercial for a future Christmas Market together.

If my work schedule allows it, I try to post here every Friday, the coming months. If that's not feasable, I'll see you again early September.

For now I will leave you with a few recents shots of Amsterdam, the city I call 'home':

Waited for twenty minutes for a bird to fly into this picture of Amsterdam Central Station. 

Nah. Twenty seconds was more like it:

For some reason this canal near my house often shows interesting skies:

On my regular walks (doctor's orders), I usually pass this point and when I feel like it, I might even swim for a bit in the just visible canal:

Do you take swims in open water? In your local area?

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Decide (a #poem)

Not enough copper

for a nameplate

for every lost soul

Who decides who's a hero

and who's a villain

or just a corpse

How kind will history be

to those who decide

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Want to read (more of) my short stories? My author page: Terrence Weijnschenk at Amazon

A donation (click) is much appreciated:

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In Facebook zijn niet alle plaatjes te zien (of te horen) en links in mijn artikelen niet aan te klikken. Klik daarom op de oorspronkelijke link. http://terrebel.blogspot.nl/ Veel leesplezier! O ja, fans kunnen mijn Fan pagina leuk vinden. https://www.facebook.com/TerrebelAuthortainer 

Over links gesproken: ja, dat ben ik maar voor verdieping staat er ook een aantal in mijn stukjes. Heb daar wat moeite voor genomen dus stel het op prijs als u de moeite neemt er op te klikken om de betreffende artikelen, onderzoeken en filmpjes te bekijken.

Meer lezen? Mijn verhalenbundels

A world without cars

A Canadian gentleman wondered what it would be like to ride an 'omafiets', literally 'a grandma bike'. It's the kind of bicycle that one commonly sees on Dutch bikelanes. Check out his video:

Everyone interested in bikes, Dutch culture and expecially both know the famous YouTube Channel Not Just Bikes. Informative, funny, nice to watch...a really good channel. Especially in this niche. 

Here's an American dad reacting to a Not Just Bikes video concerning another popular Dutch bike, the 'bakfiets' ('container bike'):

Here's how The Netherlands became one (another one is Denmark, mainly Copenhagen) of the most bike friendly countries in the world:

'Yeah, sounds nice, better health, less impact on the environment, less deaths in traffic, working closer to home and all that but it would never work in the United States!'

Not Just Bikes reveals why that is nonsense. 

The only thing that is really needed is the political will. Just like in Amsterdam in the seventies. The capital of The Netherlands was extremely car centric and moving towards the future. The future of cars, following America's lead. Amsterdam - and many other cities in The Netherland - would today look a lot similar to US (and Canadian) cities. With suburbs and all, the 'ideal' of urban planning. 

But one young girl changed the course of history. Like hundreds of children yearly, six years old Simone got killed by a car on her way to school. Her father, Vic Langenhoff, rounded up some activists, started the movement 'Stop de kindermoord' ('Stop child murder'). They petitoned, blocked streets with protests and the government conceded: from the mid seventies on, emphasis in The Netherlands shifted from 'freedom for cars' to 'freedom from cars'. Saving thousands of lives in the process and having a more healthy population. 

Who else helped were the nazis. 'What!?' Yes, because in World War II they 'conviscated' (ie stole) some 100,000 Dutch bikes and the Dutch started to revolt and come to see the bike as a symbol of 'resistance against the system'. Leading a nazi to exclaim: 'The Dutch are a very easy going and accomodating people. But don't touch their bikes.'

Thus the bike became a Dutch symbol for hope and freedom. You can call the Dutch cowards for never taking sides in international conflicts; you can tell them their national football team sucks, take forcibly control of their country and they won't even blink an eye when you kiss their partner in a bar. But don't touch their bikes. 

Do you have a bike? A bakfiets maybe even? And do you use it often?

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Want to read (more of) my short stories? My author page: Terrence Weijnschenk at Amazon

A donation (click) is much appreciated:

In Facebook zijn niet alle plaatjes te zien (of te horen) en links in mijn artikelen niet aan te klikken. Klik daarom op de oorspronkelijke link. http://terrebel.blogspot.nl/ Veel leesplezier! O ja, fans kunnen mijn Fan pagina leuk vinden. https://www.facebook.com/TerrebelAuthortainer
Over links gesproken: ja, dat ben ik maar voor verdieping staat er ook een aantal in mijn stukjes. Heb daar wat moeite voor genomen dus stel het op prijs als u de moeite neemt er op te klikken om de betreffende artikelen, onderzoeken en filmpjes te bekijken.

Heeft u na het lezen van dit blogstuk iets geleerd, wat gelachen of heeft het u aan het denken gezet, overweegt u dan een donatie voor de tijd en moeite die ik er in steek.

Meer lezen? Mijn verhalenbundels