National heritage

Hey, happy New Year everyone. This is my my 1000th post.

When it's cold and the Dutch have some ice on the canals they mostly talk in one or another way about the Elfstedentocht. Today January 4 2015 it's far from cold but it's 18 years ago when the last
Tocht till now was ridden. It's a perfect day to publice a movie of the Elfstedentocht.

The movie in 2 parts is of a participant of the elfstedentocht. Here is the link to
part 1 and part 2 . A rare view from the inside of a great sportsevent.
You see highlights of the worldwide famous icescate marathon of 200 kilometer through the province of Friesland in the north of the Netherlands from the perspective of a rider.

With special thanks to family De Ruiter who made the movie and VPRO television network who gave it attention.

heatwave

In the Netherlands we are on the brink of a heatwave. A few days with temperatures of 30+ Celsius are very rare for this country. The last wave was in 2006 (maybe I blogged about it) and there were to much people who died of dehydration and complications due to the heat. Luckily today was a day witrh a low humidity. The heath was much more bearable.

For my garden this is a test. I planted a few sunflowers and I don't know if they can face the sun much longer.

This part of the garden is 2 metres wide and 4 metres wide.

relax

I'm longing for the summer, easy listening and waiting for the storm.

Amsterdam

As weather is the talk of the Dutch, this is a video of cold Amsterdam.

After the sun

A cold wet Marchy day