Amsterdam, Netherlands

Because the company’s entire management team headed down to France for a conference in the alpine ski resort of Chamonix, the atmosphere in the office was a bit strange today. I am not sure if it was related to the absence of the managers but at exactly five all the lights went off in the office and whatever we tried (for example using a light switch) it was to no avail. There was still a bit of light coming in from outside, but when that also started to fade away, I switched off my computer, got my stuff, yelled ‘have a nice evening’ to whomever may still have been left in the ward (it was pitch black by now) and left.

For the fifth time in eight days I visited Zuiderbad and that’s where the above picture was taken. It’s me in the changing room of the pool, and just in case you are wondering, I was wearing my swimming shorts at the time. Let’s keep this blog family friendly. I am enjoying my return to the swimming pool so much, and even within the short period of a week I notice that my body is adjusting to swimming better and better. Where last week’s fifty laps had been a bit clumsy, throughout the past week I noticed some nice improvement in my swimming style and speed. I’ll return to Zuiderbad tomorrow, intending to keep up this rhythm of swimming three or four times a week for the foreseeable future.

Amsterdam, Netherlands

It was the day that the streetlight just outside my window (picture above) stayed on all day for some reason that is probably known to the city only.

It was also the day of the meeting, at 7pm tonight, of the association of flat owners of the building I live in, which finally shed some light on likely expenses in the short term for newly discovered issues with the building (2,200 euros for me, since you ask) and what the plan is for claiming that money back from the person who sold us the apartments.

It was also the day that the association decided to take action to close down the coffeeshop on the ground floor. Not because we have anything against coffeeshops as a principle, but because this one is still owned by the person who sold us these apartments and has been so negligent in his duties towards the rest of the owners, and this seems to be the only way to make him pay attention to his obligations.

It was also the day that there was the first snow in Amsterdam. Not much, just a light drizzle snow (is that a word) but it stayed on the ground and that’s no surprise because it’s very cold outside and likely to stay that way for the rest of the week.

It was the day that I treated myself to a breakfast consisting of a delicious blueberry muffin and a large vanilla latte in the Coffee Company store across the road. I used to go there much more, but for dietary (they use full fat milk) and budgetary reasons (the above breakfast is € 7.45) I had been cutting down on my visits there. Because I didn’t spend much money at all the entire weekend I decided that I really deserved a bit of a treat today and it came in the form of a Coffee Company breakfast.

It was also, and actually mostly, the day that I typed and I typed and I typed. No less than 23 blog posts (including this one) on one single day, so that – FINALLY – I can once more claim that my blog is as every blog should be: completely up-to-date (at least for the next hour or so) 

Amsterdam, Netherlands

Andy explained to me the other day in an email why he would not be going to see The Iron Lady in the cinema, and the reason he gave was a perfectly valid one. “Go and see The Artist,” he recommended in the next sentence. That’s what I did today, at the matinee show (12:30pm) in The Movies, an arthouse cinema on Haarlemmerdijk, about 25 minute walk west from where I live.

The Artist is a film I knew virtually nothing about as I entered the cinema, but much to my surprise I recognised quite a lot of scenes from recent clips on TV. Especially the adorable dog, one of the stars of the film, was on TV repeatedly in the past couple of weeks. It’s a wonderful film for sure, but it’s definitely not your standard Hollywood blockbuster. Filmed entirely black and white, and mostly with old-fashioned muted dialogues and text card, and with dramatic film music accompanying the film as if you were sitting in a 1920s movie theatre, it tells the story of a film star in 1929 who refuses to make the transition to ‘talkies’, films with sound and spoken words, his demise and how he was saved. A very nicely told story with wonderful cinematography. Andy was absolutely right with his recommendation.

I returned home from the cinema, saw an sms from Hanno asking if I wanted to go and have lunch with him which I had to decline because almost straight away I left the house again with my swim stuff. Yes, for the fourth time this week (I also went on Friday night) I headed for the pool and did my fifty laps. And once more it felt great. I’m so glad that it seems I’m picking up this habit again!

Amsterdam, Netherlands

It was finally time to get rid of the tulips that I had picked on Dam Square for the first National Tulip Day last week Saturday. From the picture it may seems as if they are still in reasonable condition, but that’s because you can’t see the ones that had decayed so much that they were no longer photogenic. Tulips are such wonderful flowers! I love them to bits, not in the the least because typically they are the flowers you get in this time of the year. They are a sign of spring approaching, of hope, colour and joy. And very elegant indeed.

As for my activities today, well I went out briefly to two shops on Kalverstraat, one to get batteries for my smoke alarm and bike lights, and one to get a particular type of incense from India that I just love. And that’s all. I didn’t go anywhere else, I did not visit any bars (in fact haven’t been to a Dutch bar this year at all), did not do anymore shopping, but just spent a happy relaxed day at home, reading, watching stuff on YouTube (for some reason American criminal documentaries are en vogue for me now) and working on my blog and pictures some more. Oh, and I got rid of the tulips.

Amsterdam, Netherlands

Caroline! She’s back! I picked up my trusted bike after work from RAI Station’s bicycle repair shop, and she seemed to be in mint condition. New saddle, new pedals, and beautiful as ever, my lesbian bike (I mean, come on! She has to be! You’d say the same if you saw how butch she looks.) And it all cost only 21 euros and some change. That was much cheaper than I had expected (sometimes that happens, usually it’s the other way around) so I really should have taken her to shop last week and I would have had her back much earlier. Never mind, it’s now time to get my other two bikes fixed, starting with the one that’s parked in De Pijp. I’ll try and get that done this weekend.

The picture above is of some cranes at RAI station. as you may have guessed I photoshopped the picture just a bit to give it surreal colours. Just as surreal as the concept of seven cranes in one picture itself.

It’s the weekend and that is a great feeling. I have absolutely nothing planned this weekend, and that as well is a wonderful feeling. The only obligation I have, at the very end of this weekend is a meeting on Monday, at 7pm, of the flat owners association of our building, where hopefully I will get some clarity on the status of the house and the amount of money involved in necessary repair work. More on that after the weekend for sure.

Amsterdam, Netherlands

It doesn’t happen very often but last night it happened again. I woke up at 1:52am in the middle of the night and was bright awake. And then the thoughts came. The worrying. The endless thoughts spinning in my head relentlessly. About my financial situation. About the financial situation of my team members in Cape Town. About the fact that my gross salary once more stayed the same this year, while my net salary went down, and while inflation in this country increased prices by 5% in the past two years. About how in South Africa prices went up by 10% in the past two years (believe me, I looked up all the percentages in the middle of the night.) About the question if that situation would be changing anytime soon or whether I would have to take action myself. About how much the repairs on the house would still cost me. About how I could possibly start saving again. And all that in a seemingly endless roller coaster ride of emotions in the darkest of the night. It’s bizarre how financial worries, whether they are realistic or not, can keep you awake and can tire you so much in the dead of night, exactly the time when there’s absolutely nothing you can do about them.

So I got up repeatedly to get some distraction from my computer, so I watched a video a couple of times on my iPod, so I put on the radio, so I was lying there, thinking and thinking. And then, finally at just after 5, I returned to the land of dreams. Only to wake up an hour and a half later because it was nearly time to get up. Needless to say that I felt pretty exhausted the whole day. I guess yesterday’s swim didn’t really get rid of all frustrations about work so easily. I’ll have to go back to the pool tomorrow.

Amsterdam, Netherlands

The good news is that the street in front of the building is no longer dug up. All the work on that was completed and it actually seems that the ugly yellow pipe that over the canal next to the bridge in front of the house will disappear again. It’s been disconnected on either side and hopefully will get removed soon.

The bad news is that the scaffolding is still in front of our building, as you can see on the right hand side of the picture, and that I have no idea how long it will still be there.

The other bad news was the lorry you see in the centre of the picture, completely blocking the street. It was delivering cement to a building opposite the street and woke me up this morning as it installed itself in the street and started spinning its cement mixer. It’s not like I set alarm clocks anyway, but if I would that would no longer be necessary because of the variety of workers that wake me up each morning these days.

Also good news is that I once more went to Zuiderbad after work and a brief visit to Sean and Mike’s today. I enjoyed yesterday’s swim so much that I decided to return today and once more it felt great. It gave me the opportunity to swim away my frustrations about a work issue today so the 3.30 euros spent on that were well worth it.

Amsterdam, Netherlands

Many years ago I went to the swimming pool quite a lot. My favourite pool was Zuiderbad, just behind Rijksmuseum, but I would go to Marnixbad as well. I did that for a couple of years, once or twice a week… but somehow that tradition stopped. I would still go occasionally but with my work days seemingly getting longer and me being home at 7pm quite often, the will to have a quick dinner and then head out to the pool again ebbed away. Those times that I did go, it was always tremendously enjoyable, but those times became more and more sporadic.

Things need to change though. My new commute bike ride is shorter than what it was before I moved house and before the office moved… well, office, so I need some more exercise. What’s more, Zuiderbad is now situated exactly between office and work, so I cycle or walk past it on the way home every day. There are three days a week that Zuiderbad is open till 10 in the evening, and one of those evenings was tonight. So, this morning I had put some swim stuff if my bag and on the way home I dropped by Zuiderbad and had an hour of swimming. I did 50 laps (it’s a 25 meters pool) plus some additional laps under water. It was absolutely super. I love swimming and always have, even when I was a kid and we went on holiday to Spain or France. I walked home after the swim and felt elated, so happy that I had finally made the jump again – almost literally. I’m determined to turn this into a habit once more.

The picture is of Herengracht, Amsterdam’s most exclusive canal, and it shows the section that’s nicknamed The Golden Curve, because many of the buildings here are very expensive, and home to important financial or legal businesses. When I took this picture, for example, I was standing in front of the offices of Mr Moszkowicz, arguably the country’s most prominent and best known lawyer, who happened to walk towards me on the pavement, one minute after I had taken this picture. Maybe I should have sold him this picture. I’m sure he has the means to buy it, if he can afford a building in this section of Herengracht.

Amsterdam, Netherlands

The last day of my four day weekend, and again I did nothing particularly worth mentioning on this blog, apart from the fact that I’ve been updating this very blog, trying to get it up-to-date (as blogs really should be) finally again. In the afternoon, in need of some fresh air, I decided to walk Caroline, my trusted cargo bike, to the bike repair shop at RAI station. The weather was crisp, actually very nice as I left the house at 4:30, picking Caroline up at Keizersgracht where I left her last week, and walking towards RAI (picture above.)

I then returned home, once more walking, and this time I decided to check if one of my other bikes, which I had left in the De Pijp neighbourhood with two flat tyres some eight months ago, was still there. And lo and behold, it was still there! I decided to leave it there for now and walk it too to the bike repair shop next week. It will be good to have two working bikes again, just in case of a malfunction with either of them. I returned home in the early evening, had dinner, and sat behind my computer for the rest of the evening. Not a very adventurous day, I’m afraid.

Amsterdam, Netherlands

And then, the day after National Tulip Day, the picture of the day on this blog would of course have to be of the tulips I picked and took home yesterday. This is the bunch that now sit in a vase on my computer desk aka dinner table.

In the afternoon I treated myself to another film, The Iron Lady, which I saw in the wonderful Tuschinski Theatre. Now, a film about Margaret Thatcher is always going to be a bit tricky. So let me first say that I thought Meryl Streep was truly brilliant. A very convincing, and at time spooky similarity with the real Mrs T. She deserves every Oscar she can get for her role because it truly was a stunning performance.

But… there is a big BUT with this film. You see, when she was prime minister, from 1979 until 1990 for eleven long years, I despised Margaret Thatcher. You think ‘despised’ is a bit of a strong word to use? Well, call it ‘loathe’ or ‘dislike intensely’ if you like and you get the same, true impression I had of her. She was a completely divisive, harsh, polarising and stubborn politician who basically hated anything that wasn’t south east England middle to upper class families. The North? Ireland? Scotland? Gay people? Miners? Working classes? Trade Unions? They all were met with an icy cold personality, someone who wasn’t willing to make their lives any easier. On the contrary.

It’s often said that she did some very necessary good things for the country that unfortunately hurt the population in the process. That she was the person who revived the UK, considered to be ‘the sick man of Europe’ in the 1970s. Thatcher actually did no such thing. Economic growth under her premiership was at an average of 2.4% per annum the same as in the 1970s. Her privatisation schedules ensured that the UK now has the highest rail prices of just about any country in the Europe. And it was her attitude towards Scotland that caused the demise of the Conservative Party north of the Border and helps Alex Salmond in his strive for Scottish Independence to this very day.

On a personal level I was most upset with her attitude towards gay people. Keep in mind that this was before my own coming-out, when I was still struggling very much with my own identity. Clause 28, or Section 28 as it’s also known, was a piece of legislature specifically aimed against gay people. Thatcher used homophobia to get re-elected for a second time, and in 1988 Clause 28 came into effect, stating “a local authority shall not intentionally promote homosexuality or publish material with the intention of promoting homosexuality or promote the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship.” Is it any wonder that, at a time that I was trying to come to terms with my own identity, it was homophobic legislation like this that made me despise the lady who created it?

My main objection to the film is that it seems to glorify Margaret Thatcher. Many Americans now believe that Ronald Reagan was close to being a saint. He was not. His refusal to give federal funding for AIDS research cost many people their lives and delayed this research by nearly a decade. Reagan was no saint and neither is his counterpart in the UK. The Falklands War, which happened in Thatcher’s first government (and secured her first re-election) is shown fairly late in the film. That gives the impression that Thatcher turned the country around from a dismal island to a victorious nation during her 11 years in power and that is of course a complete twisting of historical facts. The role that her introduction of the much hated Poll Tax played in her downfall is not highlighted very much. And much to my own frustration, there is no mention of Clause 28 at all in the entire film.

Can I recommend the film. Well… yes, because of Streep’s performance and because of the way the film shows some important moments in Thatcher’s premiership. But go and see it only if you keep in mind that Thatcher was no saint. She may be a sad old lady now (and the film shows that clearly) but that doesn’t mean she deserves any compassion or pity for the harsh and cold measures she took while she was ruling Britannia. On the contrary, she should get condemned for that still.