Back home is where I want to be

In the words of Paul Simon “Gee but it’s great to be back home”.

The last couple of days, posting the blog has been a challenge. Firstly I had to use a borrowed Apple Mac, which I am unaccustomed to - no right click, no scroll wheel and a whole set of keys either missing or different. But that was nothing compared to the problem caused by everything on screen being in Dutch. Even though I was logged into my own Google Blogger account it was all in Dutch. But things went from bad to worst, I must have clicked on the wrong key, for suddenly not only was everything in Dutch but in Russian Cyrillic alphabet!! From “Double Dutch” to “All Greek to me” in one fair swoop. What a nightmare.

Its great sitting here in front of my familiar PC, never again will I curse you when you freeze on me.

By necessity this is going to be a very short blog, having travelled by coach all last night I feel absolutely knackered. The French customs and immigration made us take all our luggage off the bus, and pass it through an x-ray machine. My hand luggage caused suspicion. I had to open it for inspection. You would think they had never seen a packet of mixed nuts and dried fruit before! After the French, the British had us all off the bus for yet another inspection of passports. There’s always a high probability of problems when you see a large percentage of passengers having to fill-in immigration card because they are non-European Union Nationals. And so it was last night a West African couple were questioned and requisitioned - result we missed the 05:29 Eurotunnel Shuttle and had to wait for the 06:49. The knock on effect being the coach encountered the London rush hour - slow crawl for the final 5 miles.

Enough enough, I’m off to bed.

YesBut its so so flat.

Holland is so boring! No bumps lumps, no need a hill or mountain - just flat. And so uniform - the Dutch do not close their curtains so you see into their tidy neat houses. If they have a potted plant on the right side of their windowsill they must have an identical plant on the left. Tall vase on the right, tall vase on the left. And the little gardens in front of their houses are laid out in geometric patterns of shrubs and heathers. Streets and streets of boring uniform sameness. Even when they look different, they give the impression of conformity.

The small towns look so clinical, as if they are reconstructed every night. Perhaps as a reaction to their inherent uniformity, they indulge in nonconformity. It is jarring to see the streets of the prim little towns polluted with dollops of dog shit. The Dutch make no effort to stop their dogs fouling the pavements, and wouldn’t dream of cleaning up the disgusting mess.

And their Capital city - well which is it Amsterdam or De Hague? How could the good Burghers of Amsterdam allow their city to degenerate into Europe’s brothel, overrun by drunken British hen and stag parties - they leer at the prostitutes flaunting themselves in red lit brothel windows, and ogle, like children at a sweet shop, at the videos and toys in the sex shops.

You have no idea how difficult it has been postin this blog. The computer thinks I'm Dutch and I'm faced with the choice of Archief, Wijzig, Weergave and a lot more words i have no idea what they mean.

I have learnt the hard way, verwijder means delete!

YseBut this is the country that gave the world: Rembrandt, Vincent Van Gogh and Gouda cheese.

Click here to see today’s image - an apple a day