outdoors

No Plan but a List

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Hello, I’m back (although I haven’t really been away). I hope you’ve had a good summer and feel ready to get back to normal life, in as far as it can be called normal at the moment.

Beforehand, I imagined myself during my Summer Break like the sculpture above, only slightly more curvy and with a pair of knitting needles in my hands. No plan, just lazing about.

Except… I’m not the lazing-about-type (I must have been an ant in a previous life or something). I soon realized that staying at home with a husband working through the summer, there was the danger of my two precious weeks becoming two very ordinary weeks. I still didn’t feel like making a plan, but I needed something to give me some sort of direction. So, I got out a notebook and made a list.

A list of things that make a summer holiday into a summer holiday for me. It included:

  • Travel
  • No alarm clock
  • Simple, orderly environment (tent or cottage)
  • Read a foreign magazine
  • No newspaper, no tv
  • Grocery shopping in an unfamiliar shop (I love those huge French Hypermarchés, and the aisles with dozens of different types of muesli and honey in German supermarkets)
  • Spend as much time outdoors as possible
  • Lots of exercise (cycling, walking)
  • Lots and lots and lots of time for crafting and reading
  • Simple food, try a few new things
  • Sightseeing, visit a town, city, museum
  • Some pocket money to spend on frivolous things
  • Send postcards
  • Eat or drink something somewhere
  • Several new books to read
  • Take photographs
  • Keep a diary

Most of the items seemed doable, although some would require a little imagination. I didn’t want it to be a to-do-list with items to check off, just something I could use as a kind of compass. I didn’t do everything on it. One of the things I did do, was take photographs. Loads of them.

Photographs of landscapes…

… lovely houses…

… flowering heather…

… and many, many more.

I didn’t go grocery shopping in one of those big French or German supermarkets, but I did visit a health food shop close by that I’d never been to. They had a display of deliciously fresh looking vegetable plants outside…

… and some lovely honey and other nice things inside.

I did send a few postcards, but I didn’t keep to the ‘no newspaper, no tv’ item on my list. I felt the need to stay informed, and especially the publication of the IPCC climate report felt too important to not read about.

So scary! But the hopeful thing about it is that it seems to have conveyed a sense of urgency. I often struggle with the bad news from around the world. How can I enjoy a Summer Break and blog about small pleasures when so much is going wrong?

This is one of the books I have been reading during my Summer Break:

It is set in an imaginary place in Ireland (travel!), far removed from the real world. In it I found a nugget of wisdom that applies to our everyday world as well: ‘… even in times of death, destruction and ignorance, there are still good people who can make a difference.’ (p. 90)

That’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? Trying to be a good person making a difference. And to be able to do that, we need a break from time to time. Knitting isn’t going to save the world, but at least it isn’t making things worse either. So, I’ve sat knitting and reading on our veranda, behind the flowering dill, quite a bit.

And although the weather was unreliable, I’ve also been walking for hours and cycling for miles and miles.

I didn’t keep a diary, but I’d like to write about a few of the things I’ve seen along the way and thought I’d do that here over the next couple of weeks. It’s far too much for one or two blog posts, so there’ll be a few more than my usual Friday ones. Hope you don’t mind.

What I would have liked to do as well, was visit a few yarn shops in the area, but most of them were having a Summer Break just like me. The only one I visited did have some nice yarns…

… but otherwise was such a mess…

… that I beat a quick retreat and won’t even tell you where it was. But not to worry – there will be a few other crafts-related things to share.

Bye for now, and see you again soon!

(This isn’t my bicycle, but a purely ornamental one in a neighbour’s garden.)

Places to Sit and Knit 1

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Hello! Today, I’m taking you along for a short walk, to a lovely place to sit and knit.

The bench in the photo above is about a mile from our home, a 20-minute walk. It is around the bend of a sandy path.

At first glance the view from the bench is underwhelming.

But the better you get to know the spot, the more you start to appreciate it. We cannot enter it, not just because it is a protected nature reserve…

… but also because it is a bog and we’d have a hard time keeping our feet (and the rest of ourselves) dry.

But we can walk around it.

We can say hello to some of the inhabitants. Hello big green frog!

Dragonflies are whirring through the air or sunning themselves.

At first glance, the vegetation is unspectacular, too. But again, the better you look, the more you see.

Our native blueberries, billberries, are much smaller than the ones in the shop. They are easily overlooked, but kneeling down and looking between the leaves you can see that they are ripe.

Another thing that is easily overlooked is the sundew. It is a teeny tiny carnivorous plant, with round leaves of only a few millimetres across.

Looked at from very close up, it is beautiful, with its glistening, sticky and treacherous (to insects) drops.

Strolling around here, taking photographs and enjoying the quiet, I suddenly had the idea of doing a series about ‘Places to Sit and Knit’. I thought we could virtually sit here, and in some other lovely places, together, look around and chat about our knitting a bit.

Of course, a blog is always mainly one-way traffic, but I am really interested in what is on your needles or hooks. Do leave a comment telling me about it, if you feel like it. Mention the name of a pattern or yarn and I may know what it looks like, or I’ll look it up on Ravelry or elsewhere. If you don’t feel comfortable leaving comments on blogs, that’s fine, too.

Today, I don’t have a lot of knitting to show you, though. There are the beginnings of a small object from sock yarn remnants that doesn’t look like much yet:

Some swatches for a new shawl design I’m working on:

And a December gift for someone who’ll probably be reading this that I want to keep a surprise:

And I’m not entirely sure this will really become a series either. Maybe the idea will fall by the wayside, or maybe not. Anyway, I think it’s a nice idea and I’ll try to keep it in mind.

Well, let’s head back home, past the house with the prettiest front door for miles around…

… and through a ferny, sun-dappled (at least today) part of the wood.

As of tomorrow, I have planned two weeks off. My husband prefers to keep working through the summer, albeit at a more leasurely pace, but I really need some time to just sit and knit. Apart from not setting the alarm clock and not doing work of any kind, I haven’t planned anything. The plan is to have no plan. That also goes for my blog. I may pop in if there is something to write about and I feel like sharing it, but I’m not sure.

I hope that you’ll also have some unplanned time this summer. To just sit and knit. Or to read, go for walks, maybe even travel a bit, or do nothing. Whatever you are planning (or not planning) to do, I wish you a lovely time!

Feels like Spring

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Hello!

Today I’m writing to you from and entirely different world compared to two weeks ago. The snow melted away in no time, and suddenly it feels like spring. The spring bulbs in our garden are bursting into flower.

It’s not just crocuses and snowdrops, but also winter aconites,

and dwarf irises, yellow and blue.

It’s so lovely to feel the warmth of the sun, hear the birds sing their hearts out, and enjoy the flowers and the buzzing of the first bees.

And yet… there is this gnawing feeling.

It shouldn’t be like this in February – it’s unseasonally warm. The highest temperatures ever measured in this month for 5 days in a row. I don’t want to be a spreader of doom and gloom, but I can’t just ignore such signs of a changing climate. I’ve heard that it affects different parts of the world differently. Here in the Netherlands the climate has changed noticeably even in my lifetime (less than sixty years!).

Seems to me that if we want to leave our children, grandchildren and their children with a liveable planet so that they, too, can enjoy the beautiful signs of spring…

… we urgently need to learn how to be good ancestors.

Speaking of ancestors, on Sunday we visited a lovely place our ancestors left us. It’s a country estate that for centuries belonged to a wealthy family and is now owned by a nature conservation organization.

The 17th century house with stepped gable, surrounded by a moat with a bridge leading to the front door, is no longer there. The only buildings left are five tenant farms. These are the stables of one of them, now converted to living space.

The estate is part woodland,

part pasture (the cows are still inside at this time of year.)

Like many other farms in our region, the farms on the estate all have their own little baking house. Can you see the small white rectangle on the wall of this baking house?

Let’s zoom in – it’s a face! A person with a high forehead, no nose to speak of, and an elegant hairdo. Is it just a decoration, a household deity, or the likeness of somebody who used to do their baking here?

Going for a walk here, is like traveling a century or so back in time.

Apart from going for short walks, enjoying the garden, worrying about the climate and the pandemic, and generally doing what I need to do, I’ve also done some knitting. My blue Panel Debate cardigan is nearly finished and I’m knitting swatches and prototypes for a pair of fingerless mitts.

The yarn I originally had in mind for them didn’t behave as I thought it would. Looking for an alternative, I found several skeins in my stash that were meant for something else, but will be just perfect for my mitts.

I want to make a single colour and a 2-colour version. It is hard to capture the colours exactly. There is an off-white undyed cream, a dusty blue and a warm cherry red. What shall I do? Cream and blue for the 2-colour version, and red for the single-colour one?

Or cream and red for the 2-colour version, and blue for the single-colour one?

What do you think?

I hope you’ve enjoyed the flowers and the walk, and would be grateful for some help with the colours. I’m in doubt. Is the blue-and-cream combo nice and subtle or too bland? Is the red-and-cream combo nice and cheerful or too Christmassy?

Thanks and take care! xxx

Beautiful Houses (and a Spectacular One)

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Hello!

Today I’d like to take you along for a bicycle ride. The traffic signs can be slightly confusing, but don’t worry, I know the way.

My foot injury is healing really well now, and I’m able to go for short walks, but my daily exercise still mainly takes the form of cycling. I’m so glad I’ve been able to continue doing that – it keeps me fit and healthy.

The countryside around here is not as flat as most parts of the Netherlands.

It is slightly undulating and riding an ordinary (not electrically assisted) bicycle like mine, is a good workout.

While I’m cycling, I love looking at beautiful houses, like this one basking like a cat in the late afternoon sun.

Or this one with its cheerful shutters.

Or this one in a lovely sheltered spot.

Or this one with the day’s washing drying in the wind.

My family is always laughing at me, when I show pictures of beautiful houses like these on my blog, saying, ‘People around the world reading this will think that we lead charmed lives and all live in picturesque thatched cottages or farmhouses!’

They are right, we don’t. Our house and most others are more modern and modest, and we get our fair share of woes and worries. Only last year a crystal meth lab was discovered in a picturesque house along today’s route (not in any of the photos) and a cocaine laundry in a farm building along one of my other routes.

But I’m not fooling you. It IS true that there are a lot of these lovely houses around here. Just like it is true that we really have windmills, although most of them are no longer working.

It was late afternoon. Taking pictures along the way slowed me down, and in the end I had to hurry to reach the best house of all before the light had gone. It’s not just a beautiful house, but a downright spectacular one!

This is its front door.

And here it is in its entirety.

From a distance it looks like an age-old castle, but it was built in recent years. From reclaimed materials.

The castle has lots of whimsical details – let’s zoom in on a few of them.

Here is one richly decorated turret, with coloured bricks, tiled squares, a spider’s web stained-glass window, and a couple of golden ‘girls’.

A fierce looking bird on another one.

While I was looking at the castle, I was wondering what the things sticking up in the air on the battlements of the north tower were. Zooming in on the photographs at home made me laugh out loud – they were the legs of upside-down mannequins.

I wasn’t exaggerating when I said it was spectacular, was I? The owner/builder must be a person with shedloads of focus. And a great sense of humour!

On the way back, I saw the first newborn lamb of the year. I don’t know what breed it is.

The light was fading quickly.

It was good to come back to our own unspectacular but beautiful-to-me house.

In addition to working on, ahem, ‘several’ other knitting projects, I’m knitting rows of beautiful blue-green houses for another Thús 2. More about that when it’s finished.

Thank you for coming along!

A Recipe and a Ramble

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Hello!

Several of you have asked me for the recipe of the apple-and-blueberry pie I baked at the start of our autumn break. Your wish is my command (sometimes), so here it is. (For those of you not interested in recipes, just scroll on for a ramble and a tiny bit of knitting.)

Apple-and-Blueberry Pie

For a 24 cm/9½” ø spring form cake tin
Makes 8-12 slices

Ingredients

  • 200 g unsalted butter
  • 200 g sugar
  • 1 medium egg
  • ½ tsp vanilla extract
  • 200 g plain flour
  • 200 g wholewheat pastry flour
  • 12 g baking powder*
  • A pinch of salt
  • 2-3 apples (depending on size)
  • 150 g blueberries**
  • 1 level tsp cinnamon

* I like making my own half-and-half mixture. Instead of the two types of flour and baking powder you can use 400 g of ordinary or wholewheat self-raising flour. (Voor mijn Nederlandse lezers: ik gebruik een mengsel van gewone bloem, gebuild tarwemeel en wijnsteenbakpoeder i.p.v. zelfrijzend bakmeel)
** When using frozen blueberries, the pie may take a little longer to bake

Method

  • Preheat the oven to 200 ˚C/400 ˚F (180 ˚C/350 ˚F fan oven) and grease the cake tin
  • Cream the butter with 175 g of sugar
  • Mix in the egg and the vanilla extract
  • In a separate bowl mix the flours, salt and baking powder. Sieve these dry ingredients and gradually mix them into the butter, sugar and egg mixture to a slightly crumbly dough
  • Peel, core and slice the apples. Mix the apple slices with the blueberries, cinnamon and remaining sugar
  • Cover the base of the tin with two-thirds of the dough, pressing it in evenly
  • Pour in the apples and blueberries
  • Cover with the rest of the dough, crumbled coarsely
  • Bake the pie for about 40 minutes
  • Leave to cool completely before removing from the tin

Enjoy!

Now, let’s go for a ramble. It’s early Sunday morning in one of our favourite places. There has been a slight ground frost and the light is hazy.

This is a small-scale landscape with a meandering brook, some open marsh and farmland, and some woodland.

When it is getting a little lighter, the sun slants across a hillock, showing a strange sort of white veil on the top. What is it?

Zooming in it becomes clear that the grass and fallen oak leaves are covered in spiders’ webs.

A slightly eerie but beautiful blanket of spiders’ webs.

There is some heather as well, although it is partly overgrown with purple moor grass. A small group of sheep is grazing quietly. Not a sound to be heard. The highland cattle that also help keep the heathland open are nowhere to be seen today.

It is getting lighter, but the sun is still low, casting elongated shadows.

Towards the end of our ramble, the sun is fully out, giving the hay and wood in a barn a golden glow.

Time seems to stand still here.

Not so at home. On the knitting front, I’m in the finishing stage of all kinds of things. I’ve just finished another pair of socks. Now there’s only the ends to weave in and then I can try out my new sock blockers.

And what’s that hanging over the back of my knitting chair…………?

Take care and see you again soon!

Autumn Break

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Hello!

This week, we’re having an autumn break and I’m greeting you from our holiday cottage. Well, it’s our own home, actually. But we’re acting as if, saying things to each other like, ‘It’s a lovely holiday cottage, isn’t it?’ ‘Yes, it is. Not as tidy as I would have liked it, but it’s reasonably clean and the bed is very comfortable.’

Other holidays usually involve a Konditorei or a Patisserie, but as we’re staying home and don’t have any of those around, I also play acted at being a pâtissier and baked an apple and blueberry crumble pie on our first day off.

I’m sending you a virtual slice. Can you smell that sweet, warm, comforting apple and cinnamon aroma?

We’ve been working all through the summer, and the main aim of this week is to rest, relax and recharge. For us, some of the best ways of doing that (apart from eating apple pie) are going for walks, reading,

knitting (that’s just me),

and generally loafing around. My knitting is all purple this week – my umpteenth pair of socks and a scarf. More about those soon. Now I really want to share some of our walks with you. They are in some of my favourite places. But I don’t want to spend too much time at the computer, so I’ll mainly let the pictures speak for themselves.

Our first walk takes us to Vollenhove, the lovely little town where I sometimes come to buy a pair of good, old-fashioned, sensible shoes. Vollenhove is a former seaside town now surrounded by land. There is still a small harbour for pleasure boats.

It has a rich history, with some old houses beautifully maintained…

… and others a little less well kept.

Vollenhove also has a really, really beautiful walled garden. Maybe we can come back and visit that in spring or summer next year.

Our second walk is a walk down memory lane, outside the dyke on the Frisian coast.

It’s cold, wet and windy and I’m so glad I’m wearing my warm winter coat.

There is nobody around but us…

… and birds, many, many birds.

Ahhh, all that space, fresh air, invigorating wind. We’re outside the dyke here, a part of the country that gets flooded from time to time.

Looking back, you can see a church spire behind the dyke. That’s the village were we lived for 15 years when we were just married and where our daughter was born.

Somebody has painted words on the dyke.

In Frisian:

It lân fan moarn
Freget
De moed van hjoed

Translated:

Tomorrow’s country
Needs
Today’s courage

Hmmm, something to ponder.

Now, on to our last walk. This is just outside the village with the Tiny yarn shop I wrote about a while ago. There is some news about that and I’ll come back to that soon. For now, here is an impression of the area.

Don’t you just love that golden autumn light?

Well, that’s all for today. I hope you’ve enjoyed this virtual autumn break. I’m going back to my knitting now and hope to see you here again next week for a yarn-filled post. Bye!

PYO Garden

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Hello there!

Following on from last week’s knitting sampler, I was going to show you my Mum’s embroidery sampler today. But I’m keeping that for later.

Instead, I’m taking you along to a Pick-Your-Own flower garden. It’s just outside our village – 10 minutes cycling at most. You can borrow a spare bicycle, if you like. All we need to do is adjust the saddle to your height and we’re good to go.

Through the tunnel underneath the ring road, left and left again and we’re in a lane leading past several farms.

A short stop to say hello to a few grazing cows. Hello girls!

Hop on again, cycle two minutes more, and we’re there.

‘Have a nice day’, the sign says. ‘Open 24/7’. And ‘Relax’ and ‘Enjoy’, too. And that’s exactly what we’re here for – to just relax and enjoy this beautiful spot for a few moments.

The owner comes up, apologizing that there isn’t very much to pick anymore at the end of Summer. I reassure her that it’s fine. We don’t need a huge bunch of flowers. Just being here is a treat in itself. And I can see that there are enough flowers left for a posy.

Besides, there are loads of ornamental gourds as well.

Displayed so attractively. And so many different shades, shapes and sizes.

Basking in the sun, on the very last day of Summer, the garden is filled with butterflies…

…bees and buzzing.

I can feel my heart-rate slowing down already – just what I need.

For me, it works like this: For a while I’m chugging along nicely. Then work/life gets busier, I speed up, am immensely productive for a while and think I’m doing great. But I start forgetting to take breaks, to exercise, and to relax intentionally in the evenings. And suddenly I’m not feeling so great anymore.

It’s an old familiar pattern. Nowadays, it usually isn’t too long before I recognize it, fortunately. And I’m better at thinking of ways to slow down again than I used to be.

So, that’s why we’re here in this PYO garden today. Let’s enjoy it a little more.

Everything shows that a lot of loving care and attention has gone into the garden. It’s not just the flowers and plants. Hidden between them are a few lovely surprises, too. Like this adorable chicken.

Well, it’s time to head for the wooden shed, where the secateurs, the guest book and the money tin are. It’s painted black as many traditional outbuildings around here are.

Inside, the same loving care as in the garden is apparent. It’s in the small, whimsical details.

Now, let’s hurry home, before the flowers wilt. I’ll quickly put them in a vase and put the kettle on. I hope you have time for a cuppa? I’d like to show you something else I did to slow down and relax – I cast on a simple pair of socks.

For me, sock knitting is one of the most relaxing things to do, especially using self-striping yarn.

I’m making these for a friend’s Birthday in early October. I haven’t knit with this yarn before and am not entirely convinced it’s suitable for socks, although it is sold as sock yarn. It’s Rellana Flotte Socke ‘Ariana’ – a single ply yarn with ticker and thinner (some really, really thin) bits here and there. Very soft and slightly fuzzy.

I’m giving it a try because of the beautiful colours. Time will tell if it’s a wise decision. My friend won’t mind being a guinea pig, I’m sure. If the socks shrink and felt, I’ll knit her another pair (or two).

Well, that’s all for today. Thank you for visiting. And with everything that’s happening in the world right now and alongside everything else you’re doing, please remember to rest, relax, knit (if you’re a knitter), and look for things to enjoy.

August Blues

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Hello!

I thought of skipping my blog this week. Sometimes I just don’t know what to say, and nattering about knitting feels totally irrelevant. Rising numbers of covid cases almost anywhere in the world. People losing their homes and children going hungry as a result. People shouting that it’s all a hoax. And then the devastating explosion in Beirut…

How to live in the face of disasters like these? Sometimes, I just don’t know.

It doesn’t help that we’re going through another record-breaking heatwave. I can’t see it as anything other than a sign of rapid climate change – another disaster in the making. I’ve always struggled with hot weather anyway. As temperatures rise, my mood plummets.

One of the best things for me to do when I feel a knot in my stomach, is to go cycling. On hot days first thing in the morning.

I often take my camera with me. It helps me get out of my head and focus on my surroundings instead. And I often follow the same route. Without camera it takes me 30 minutes, with a little longer.

First I cycle through ‘our’ woodland. There are already some early signs of autumn – mushrooms, acorns and blackberries.

As soon as I leave the wood, I come to a school for animal husbandry, hay for their horses stacked high.

On the other side of the road is a small farm with some sheep and cattle. There is a young calf suckling with its mother and another one having a snooze.

There are cornflowers in the field next to it.

Taking photographs as I cycle along also helps me to slow down, which is a good thing in this sweltering heat, too.

Many of the flowers along my route at this time of year are blue. Or is it just that my eye is drawn to them? Along a ditch I squat down to photograph what I think is tufted vetch.

One of the most beautiful flowers of this season, if you ask me, is the harebell. It grows in clusters along my route. There is quite a bit of wind, making the delicate flowers dance, and it takes a lot of patience and concentration to get a good, sharp picture.

The harebells have slender stems and small flowers, but not as small as the sheep’s-bit below. From close up it may seem like quite a big flower…

… but it is just 1 to 2 centimetres in diameter. There’s a clump of them at the top of this post that gives a better impression of their size, I think.

Getting home, an hour or so later, I feel better. I haven’t solved any world problems, but I don’t feel hopeless and powerless anymore. There is always something I can do to make things better. And I realize again that there is still a lot in the world that is beautiful and good, and that small and seemingly irrelevant things can make a big difference to a day.

It’s too hot for knitting – another thing that is making me edgy. But cycling along, I thought of a dear friend of mine. We exchange e-mails every Sunday. Recently, she wrote that all she feels like doing in her spare time when it’s so hot is spinning and reading.

That reminded me of some spinning fibres she gave me a while ago. Merino wool in a gradient of blues with some white Tencel mixed in. I know that spinning those lovely fibres will also help to lift my mood.

Well, those were my thoughts for this week. Thank you for reading. I hope that you are all safe and as well as can be. And for those of you in the grip of the same heatwave, I hope this weekend will bring some rain and relief.

Summer Break

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Hello!

These two simple swatches are all there is to show you of my knitting at the moment. I have plenty of knitting plans and ideas, but it’ll take a while for them to transform into something bloggable. So I thought, Why not take a break? A nice, long summer break! I can certainly do with one. How about you?

Now, before you think that my blog will come to a standstill, that’s not what I mean. What I mean is that I’d like to take a break from talking about my knitting. I’d like to take us on a few outings and write about some other summery things. Mainly knitting-or-other-crafts-related, of course.

I don’t know exactly what it’s all going to look like, and I can’t guarantee that my knitting won’t sneak in here and there, but I hope that it’s going to be fun and something to look forward to every week.

To start with, I’d like to take you on an early morning walk and share a recipe.

Imagine that it’s 7 a.m. We’ve just had a quick breakfast and are still slightly groggy and grumpy, feeling like, ‘Do we really need to get up this early on our day off?’ Then, seeing the sun slanting through the trees, and breathing in the fresh air and the mixed smell of pine trees, sand and heather, all the grumpiness is gone. Aaaaah, it’s so good to be here!

In some places, the ground is carpeted with crowberries dotted with many, many small dewy spider’s webs.

Can you see them? Here is one from close up.

There will be small black berries on the plants later in the season, very bitter when eaten raw. The plants also give off a slightly bitter, but really nice and tangy smell.

And here, on a dead tree trunk, is something giving off a not-so-nice smell:

It’s fox’s spraint. (Forgive me for being so weird to photograph fox poo, but I think it’s really interesting that they deposit it in such a prominent spot.)

Oh, and look, aren’t we lucky today? There, in the distance is a roe deer mum with her kid…

… strolling and grazing along the path. I don’t think they’ve spotted us yet, but we won’t be able to get much closer without being noticed.

And here are their hoof prints, one big and one small:

Aww, that was so sweet. Now, before we head back, let’s just enjoy the peace and quiet for a while on this lovely bench with a dead branch for a footstool.

The wind is soughing softly through the pine branches above us.

The sun is rising in the sky, but our bench is in the shade of the big old pines, so we won’t get too hot. I could sit here all day, enjoying the peaceful view…

… but I shan’t, because I promised to share a recipe with you, too. It’s my recipe for Very Healthy Oat Squares. I make these every other week. They keep very well and are ideal snacks to take on walks and other days out. Why not bake a batch of these (or of something else if you have a sweeter tooth) in preparation for next week’s outing?

Here are the ingredients all set out.

Very Healthy Oat Squares

For a 27 by 27 cm baking tray, makes 16.

Ingredients

  • 200 g thick-rolled oats (not the finer porridge oats)
  • 200 g wholewheat pastry flour*
  • 100 g sultana raisins
  • 50 g currants
  • 50 g dried cranberries
  • 8 g speculaaskruiden**
  • 3 g salt
  • 2 tbsp sunflower oil + a little extra for greasing
  • 250 ml cold water or a little less

* Wholewheat pastry flour is more finely ground than ordinary wholewheat flour and is available from most healthfood stores.
** This is a typically Dutch spice blend available online here and there. Gingerbread spice mix is not entirely the same but a good substitute.

Method

  • Preheat the oven to 180 ˚C (fan oven 160 ˚C)
  • Put all dry ingredients in a mixing bowl
  • Stir in 2 tablespoons of sunflower oil and grease the baking tray with the rest of the oil
  • Gradually stir in the water. Try using a little less than the 250 ml at first. The mixture should just stick together and should not be soggy at all. If it is too wet, the oat squares won’t keep as well
  • Knead through (by hand or using a mixer) for a minute or two
  • Drop the mixture onto the baking tray and, using wet hands, distribute it evenly and flatten it
  • Tidy the edges (ragged edges will become brittle and burn)
  • Cut into 16 squares and bake for 35 minutes
  • Remove the baking tray from the oven, transfer the squares to a wire rack and leave to cool before storing

In an airtight container, kept in a cool and dry place, the oat squares will keep up to two weeks.

Enjoy!

Reed

by

Hello, and an extra warm welcome today! I sincerely hope that you are in good health and able to cope with life’s stresses in this strange and scary world we suddenly find ourselves in. And I also hope that you get all the support you need if you have health problems or are struggling with this new reality in any way.

I’ve been wondering what to do, here on my blog. I had planned to write about the area where I found the inspiration for a new knitting design, but it all felt rather futile under the circumstances. I could write about how the pandemic impacts everyday life here, in the Netherlands, instead. But how would that help?

After giving it some more thought, I’ve decided to stick to my original plan. I’m not a doctor, nurse or other healthcare professional. I can’t help anybody in that way. What I hope I can do, is offer some comfort, inspiration and cheer through my words, pictures and knitting. A breath of fresh air for everybody cooped up at home and something different for worried minds to focus on.

Would you like to join me on a short virtual tour of ‘our’ wetland?

We have the great good fortune to live close to two National Parks. To the North-East there’s a large area of woodland and heath. (For my regular readers: that’s where the flocks of sheep live.) And to the South-West there’s a wetland area.

This is, in fact, the largest lowland bog in Northwest Europe. It is ideal for cycling – there are miles of bicycle tracks and meandering narrow roads.

At this time of year, this open landscape can be rather bleak, with chilly winds. But one cloudy and windy day, about a fortnight ago, I braved the elements and took some photographs.

In summer the area is overrun by tourists from all over the world. Normally there would be some shivery visitors around taking selfies even in March, but now, with Covid-19 forcing them to stay at home, it is deserted.

The canoes and the soundless ‘whisperboats’ are waiting for busier times.

I could tell you about the picturesque villages, the crocheted curtains behind many windows, the various types of windmills, or the birds, flowers and butterflies, but I’m keeping all that for later. Today, I’ll focus on the landscape, and especially on reed.

Apart from lakes, canals and wet grasslands, there are extensive reedlands, often right behind the houses.

Mowing takes place in winter, and in March much of the reed has already been mown (right half of photo below). The rest will follow soon or is left as it is for the birds and other wildlife.

A statue in one of the villages shows a traditional reed worker taking a break.

Nowadays, the work is done with modern motor mowers. Then the reed is tied into bundles and stacked along a waterway…

… or in the corner of a field and covered with plastic sheeting…

… to be collected with a tractor and trailer or transported over water on a flat boat:

Not surprisingly, many houses around here have reed roofs. The oldest thatched houses are very small – tiny houses avant la lettre.

Most of these are now rented out as holiday cottages. On the outside they look exactly like they did 100 years ago, and they do still have an original bedstee (a bed inside a sort of cupboard), but otherwise they have all mod cons.

There are also some fairly modest new houses with reed roofs…

… as well as more luxurious ones:

Although I’m happy with our own house, and wouldn’t want to move at all, I always love looking at other people’s houses, especially if they’re as lovely as these.

I did say that I wouldn’t talk about birds today, but I just have to show you these storks I saw on a nest:

Many people around here provide storks with nesting places in the form of wagon wheels placed on high poles, or on a dead tree as here.

Just as I was heading home, the sun peeked out from behind the clouds. Standing in the nippy wind, looking out over the shimmering water surface, with a couple of graylag geese in the foreground, a cormorant primping its feathers a little further away, and the sound of other water birds in the distance… a moment of bliss.

One of the inhabitants of this reedland (not in this photo) formed the inspiration for my new knitting pattern. I’m busy finishing everything and hope to tell you more about it soon. For now, take care and stay well!

Oh, and if you’d like to read more about this National Park, do visit the official website.