It was last Sunday. We were well rested, and the effects of this spring seemed to have lessened a bit for us both.

It was nearly a great day – this Bison hunting day.

We left home reasonably early, and as we always do we took clothes for the rain, and clothes for the wind. We had to stop about 1k from home to add clothes to protect from the wind.

Now Morgan has given us both a special Swiss bag for carrying across the body over one shoulder and it has pockets for everything. It is a great thing for hiking as they do in Switzerland and for cycling as we do here in the Netherlands.

Mine contained my little Samsung camera to take those all important Bison photos, my puffer for my asthma, my strepsils for my sore throat, and my sun tan lotion for the sun, tissues for you know what, and did I say it already; probably, but I also took my little Samsung camera to take the all important Bison photos.

I know you are saying out there – what am I on about.

Well, I added a sleeveless sweater vest thing to stop the wind. I took off the wonderful Swiss bag, the gift from Morgan, put on my Vest thing, and reduced the affect of the wind. I rode off happily without my Swiss bag, my camera, my puffer, my suntan lotion, my strepsils, my tissues, and oh dear, my camera.

We rode for nearly 5k’s before we realised. That is we rode to our destination – the Bison Park, well it isn’t called the Bison Park, but just now I cannot remember what it is called. But we rode there all the same, stopped the bikes, started to lock them up and I realised I didn’t have the bag, the wonderful Swiss bag from Morgan.

and that Best Beloved rode gallantly back to see if he could find the bag – not a hope.

But the best thing that happened on this day is that there were no Bison to be seen anywhere. So the camera wasn’t needed.

But I would like 4gb memory card back

So if you found the bag – you can have it, I just want the photos I have not downloaded from our boat day the day before.

So if you have the bag and camera and all the other bits and pieces in it – we can swap – I will give you the charger for the camera battery and you will give me the 4gb card with the photos on it still.

Message for Morgan don’t buy us another bag. We can replace it ourselves, as well as the camera. I just hope we get the memory card back.

I wanted stationary photographs of the Viking Float – being a Viking, born in Denmark and because it was fantastic.

But you do not always get what you want – and probably all Dutch people know that the whole parade does not end up in Haarlem for viewing because it is just too big. It does mean of course that we will have to go back to Hillegom or somewhere else to see the floats next year. Maybe it will be necessary to go to the beginning of the parade. I wonder what we did not see last year.

Hope you enjoy what we did get. These photos may change as we consider the others we have. Do click on them to see them well.

A Spring Tradition in Friesland

In accordance with an old tradition in Friesland, the hunt for the first plover’s egg of the year has been on. The first egg was found yesterday morning in Britsum by Hidde Dijkstra who immediately sent a text message announcing his find, which was being presented to the Queen´s Commissioner for Friesland yesterday afternoon. The finder will receive a 15 euro award and a silver model of the egg.

In Friesland, the first plover´s egg is symbolic of the beginning of spring. Collecting plovers´eggs is banned in the EU, but Friesland is exempted for cultural and historical reasons. Locals are allowed to take the eggs between 1 March and 9 April. Supporters of the tradition maintain that this is not harmful to the plover population as the birds are capable of producing others. Last year, 5939 eggs were taken, 500 fewer than last year.

Daily news and views for the international community – including the story above on “The Hague Online”

We subscribe to The Hague Online News because it is in English, and we do not have a television. Reading the local papers in Dutch is very very hard work.

If you follow the link above you can arrange to receive the news in English online as well.

Today is the spring equinox, and the first official day of spring in the Netherlands.

In this lovely Northern land, seasons have so much more meaning than in countries closer to the equator.  You feel each new season with all your senses, in sharp contrast to the last one.  The transition from one to another is so fast it makes you blink with disbelief.

Only three weeks ago, night temperatures (and even some daytime ones) were still below zero.  Ice still covered the drains in the fields and part of the canals, and frost sparkled on the morning pavements and railway tracks.  Rain in the evenings sometimes reverted to snow, which lightly coated the rooftops and bare branches on the trees in our lane.  On the canals and rivers, ducks and coots still flocked together.

But even then, something was happening.  The snow no longer lay for days – it quietly melted away.  The bare branches began to quicken, blushing faint pink as the sap flowed.  Buds formed.  Blackberry bushes lining the pathways had been cut back to ground level in the autumn by council workers – now they sprouted long barbed tendrils.  The browned off grasses began to green, slowly at first and then with a rush.  Bulbs forced their green leaf-spears through the turf.  And the birds’ behaviour began to change.  They had behaved politely, with perfect manners, in the winter freeze.   A colourful mix of great tits, blue tits, sparrows, jays, red robins, tree-creepers and chaffinches had shared the seeds, nuts and fat-balls we put out for them.  A harmonious multi-racial, multi-species society feeding together at the expats bird cafe.  Until three weeks ago, that is, when we saw the first signs of bickering, the odd flash of temper.

Three weeks – that’s all it takes.  Now, daytime temperatures are in double figures (seventeen Celsius on Friday) and the last two nights lows were thirteen degrees.  The buds on the branches are showing leaves.  Rabbits feast on the grasses.  The bulb spears that emerged three weeks ago, like timid green pennants on a battlefield, now wave the multi-coloured flags of their flowers – snowdrops and crocuses are the first, but the daffodils and tulips will not be too far behind them.

The change in the birds is just as abrupt.  Gone are the table manners – gone indeed are any manners other than those of courtship.  There is inter-species total war.  The tits drive the tree-creeper off the insect block, the blue tits scrap with the great tits, and the robin no longer dines with the others.  On the water, the great flocks have dispersed as ducks and coots seek their own little piece of the river.  Against their own kind, all species battle for dominance in the pecking-order, seeking the prizes of the best mate and the best territory.  Winners are already courting, dancing and pairing up.  It’s spring.  It’s the mating season.

Game on!

DO CLICK ON EACH PICTURE SO YOU CAN REALLY SEE THE GARDENS

These are the world’s largest flower gardens and they are absolutely amazing. They are for everyone – if you love spring flowers, if you love colour, if you are a designer, if you are passionate about the green things of life, if you are photographer, painter, fibre artist, dreamer – it is all here for you, and for such a short time.

Keukenhof is open in the spring each year for about 2 months and because the gardens are replanted to a new theme every year – if you are visiting again – it will be different.

We had been told we could cycle there as it is not far from Haarlem where we live, but being a bit stretched energy wise we took a bus tour from Amsterdam. It was well worth doing – and if you have only a short time here in the Netherlands, in spring, then do this tour. We will go back in 2010 and just maybe we will ride our bikes there.

Approximately 7,000,000 (seven million) flower bulbs are planted each year. Thank you to the mayor of Lisse who in 1949 worked together with prominent Dutch bulb growers and exporters to develop the gardens and we are certainly grateful for that. Their objective was to have an open-air flower exhibition where growers could showcase their latest hybrids, where the consumers could view and also buy. People come from across the world to visit the gardens and to buy the bulbs. Silly Auckland gave away their flower show to Christchurch. This is what might have been.

The gardens cover some 70 acres, and that is 100,000 bulbs per acre, as well as trees, lakes, streams, sculpture gardens, greenhouses, eateries, pavilions and more – you can spend a great deal of time here and you will never see it all.

We are manic about flowers, birds, trees, sculpture, vistas, art – you name it, it is possible we could just be crazy about it, and if all of that sounds like you as well then this is a place to visit.

The bus trip to the gardens passes through the huge, dramatic, bright, multicoloured flower fields. These looked like strips of brighly coloured ribbons – and the colour spalshes could blow your mind. You could be forgiven for thinking you were on some pschedelic bus trip.

It was a quiet trip home, my mind abuzz with the colour, shape, drama and joy of it all.