The foxgloves have more and more open flowers, which get frequent visits by local bees.
Our gooseberry bush has produced a handful of fruit which we'll be harvesting shortly.
foxglove - digitale pourpre - vingerhoedskruid
gooseberry - groseille - kruisbes
starwberry - fraise - aardbei
After a quick stop at Albert Heijn for food and biscuits we drove home, just in time to be rewarded with a lovely sunset.
sparrow - moineau - mus
On this rather cloudy bank holiday Thursday we decided to make a new visit to Museum Voorlinden, just north of The Hague. We try to go there a couple of times a year, because the museum changes its exhibitions of modern art every three months or so. The museum is housed in a modern building on the grounds of a country home in the English style, which itself houses offices and the restaurant while a large tent on the other side of the museum offers drinks and a few snacks.
I'm not going to show every picture we took, but here's a few works that give an idea. Most of these are made from found objects, simply because I like that kind of thing. There were plenty of original paintings and sculptures to be seen as well.
"Famished Road" by Ibrahim Mahana, a wall made from shoemakers' boxes
"Horizon" by Hans-Peter Feldmann, a row of collected existing paintings lined up on their horizons
"Enclosed content chatting away in the colour invisibility" by Anouk Kruithof,
made from books
"Grapes" by Ai Weiwei, made from stools
"Minster" by Tony Cragg, made from gears and other round machine parts
One room was filled with "Untitled Conversations" by Joseph Grigely, who became deaf when he was ten years old and collected and combined notes and drawings from conversations with friends (displayed on the walls around a garden table and chairs replete with snacks and cans of Budweiser and lots of written notes)
"Inherited Wounds" by He Xiangyou, consisting of 24 school chairs which the artist replicated in miniature, down to every scratched name and text
Four numbered paintings by Gabriel Orezco which really struck me with their exquisite beauty (I've made this image larger than the others if you click on it)
Simone Post recreated all the furniture and fittings from her parents' house out of candy, mostly various types of marshmallow popular in the Netherlands. This had been on the national TV news as well as a few talk shows so (together with the cloudy weather) ensured the museum was full of visitors with a queue lasting an hour to see this exhibit.
Outside the garden design by Piet Oudolf is always striking and a beautiful addition to the grounds
Have a look at voorlinden.nl and we recommend it wholeheartedly!
The rightmost prune tree (as seen from the street) had only a very few small branches with leaves on them left so we decided to have it cut down. One of the people working on the new house next door chainsawed it to pieces during his lunch break for a very good price. Sadly also costing a branch on the medlar tree just below this prune tree, when a large branch fell on it after being cut. There's still two prune trees left in front of the house which are still green despite having a decline in leaves as well.
I've collected most of the branches with leaves still on them and put those in a vase. I don't expect them to grow roots or for the budding peaches to fully mature either, but we'll see. I've also cut off small branches from the large branch that broke off the medlar tree and put them in another vase - seen below in the last sunlight of the day.
prune - pruneau - pruim
medlar - nèfle - mispel
The horizon is shrouded by showers of rain, so mowing the grass will have to wait again. After pottering about and cleaning up inside we settle down for tea.
Coming home from work today I saw this lovely sight: the sunlight catching the grains on long stems of the grass of the front lawn. Which still needs mowing because last Saturday's party prevented me from doing so.
A large box arrived today, which I let the missus unpack. Its contents are shown above - the exact same crystal glassware as what I inherited from my late Mum. Where a few glasses sadly fell victim to careless adults and young children during past festivities so I keep an occasional eye out for exact replacements. And where I had good luck: a nice and helpful lady in the Vijfheerenlanden (Lands of the Five Lords) in the Netherlands sold me her grandparents' set, carefully packed for its delivery to Belgium.
It's absolutely gorgeous stuff - very fine, thin crystal with an engraved crosshatched pattern, produced ca. 1900. A few more champagne coupes would still be good to find but otherwise we're really well served now.
My brother and his missus came round for tea. She brought a bouquet of one single flower from their greenhouse!
Returning the rakes I snapped some new flowers - fresh roses, the white ones I still need to identify next to the house and the foxgloves brought back from Aywiers.
rose - roos
foxglove - digitale pourpre - vingerhoedskruid
We got last year's leaves into the compost bins in the front garden. By this time they're light and dry and easy to rake. And whenever we do something like this in the garden (weeding is another), there's always a robin taking a look if we've turned up something to eat. My eldest filmed this one.
robin - rouge-gorge - roodborstje
Our youngest filmed this squirrel having a drink this morning.
squirrel - écureuil - eekhoorn
Penne with a sauce made up by the missus, rabbiata with courgettes and bacon strips and two types of tomatoes.
Seen through the fly screen: family have arrived to congratulate our youngest. Weather was iffy so we had a fire just in case. In the end the sun came through though.
The missus bringing out her delicious tiramisu in lieu of a birthday cake. There was sufficient wind that only one candle made it.
Light comes through the slots in the lowered window blinds. The curtains are from my late Mum's guest room where the missus always felt comfortable and restful, she says. With a bit of luck they help to do the same in our bedroom!
The missus is making tiramisu for tomorrow's birthday party. With her usual energy, so a few spatters fling about here and there!
It's been cloudless for days. Which cheers up a large part of humanity but where a bit of rain would be good for the garden. Our view of the night sky is beautiful though.
Various purple flowers have appeared at our gate and just behind it, greeting us when we come home.
Behind the gate there's Aquilegias that are also found through the rest of our garden, and quite a few of the Alliums we planted long ago still pop up each year with their balls of purple firework.
