Southern Valley

Dessert feasts

Remembering summer last year, cold, damp, rainy, depressing, and finally escaping to southern France. Sunny spring weather and blue skies make all the difference. Since the past weeks I have been watching my backyard neighbor mother nature up close, suddenly changing her gray winter dresses into bright colored ball room gowns all ready for a new celebration. Although she often leaves on a long holiday towards warm Mediterranean coasts, we have become good friends. The past week she invited me to join her at her sweet dessert feast, presenting her delightful gifts in the same brightly colors as her gowns; strawberries, cherries, apples, pears, plums... chasing my winter blues away!

picture of one of mother nature's gifts on my kitchen table

Discovering

Bird songs, insects, blooming fruit trees, luscious green lawns with daffodils and dandelions are celebrating the sunshine and bright blue skies from the last week. Weather has been so very generous, it feels like summer already. I enjoy it every day starting in the early morning when opening the curtains of my bedroom. Driving along the provincial road I gaze at the animals in the meadows, grazing or taking their first sun bath in the warm grass. At home, there is this curious little panther stretching it's tiny pink nose into the world, following all movements, excited, enchanted by these new discoveries around and loving this new season of life as we do.

Heroes

Today May 4th. , since 1945, we honor and remember the heroes who liberated my country. They came to fight and die for my freedom.

They are not forgotten... we will always remember!

image of American Cemetery in Margraten, 15 minutes drive from my home

Weeping willow

Weeping for Corey's strongest willow...

Little sister

When we were kids my sister Alice and I owned a personal journal. Alice's had a brown leather cover, mine was white with thin black stripes. Both were locked by a tiny key to keep our notes saved from curious eyes. For years we arduously wrote down all our mysteries and adventures.

I never knew the content of her diary until finding it in her apartment in Barcelona. It took me a long time to open it, unfolding her childhood secrets without her permission. On the second page she mentions her 'little sister' next to a page with a neatly cut picture kept in place by duck tape and my name written by her in 1959. Seeing the image after all these years I could still remember the red sandals and striped shorts but reading her specific definition, tears came to my eyes...

Sweet big sister... the way we were!

my picture in alice's diary 1959

Perfume in the air

On a recent walk in the neighborhood I visited a uncommon friend living in a lovely garden. Not just an ordinay garden. Over the years this promenade in early spring has become a familiar walk, knowing I will find this splendid magnolia tree in full bloom. We truly have become friends, the tree and I. It seems to be waiting for my steps, spreading its luscious branches reaching out to me across the garden wall. And every year its unique present lays on the side walk, one single blossem just for me...

... sweet perfume of spring!

picture of a glass bowl holding my friend's present, a single magnolia!

and an inspired hand painted linen cloth

The most beautiful

A sunny morning in Delft.

She stands in front of the open window watching the daily crowd strolling by on the street outside, vividly talking about the latest rumors in town or learning about the new prices of vegetables on the market. As she closes the window an unperceived visitor enters the room, approaching her silently on his velvet shoes. She suddenly turns her head, elegantly wrapped in a beautiful indigo blue and golden dyed turban.

Within this sudden move the precious large pearls hanging from her ears touch her delicate neck. Although surprised by his sudden appearance she knows him well. Gazing at her radiance in the early morning luster he pleads her to stand still only to capture this unique moment for ever. And while the gentle daylight creates this remarkable heart shaped shade on her lip, she slightly opens her mouth saying softly...

"... there you are!!"...

The girl with the pearl earring by Johannes Vermeer ca. 1665

We will never know what she said or who she actually was (probably one of Vermeer's daughters) but she is proclaimed as the most beautiful (painting) in the Netherlands, our Dutch Mona Lisa! Endless beauty!

What do you think she said??

p.s. Don't miss the Mauritshuis in the Hague when visiting my country,  gaze like Vermeer did!

Poetic skies

April is painting the Dutch heavens as it has done for centuries. Typical menacing clouds, teasing spring light to peak through, threatening with rain showers or just drifting by. As so often marvelously painted by our old masters. Poetic skies, melancholic beauty!

Recently I found this remarkable society on the internet, mentioning the question of critics if these formations of clouds were created for more drama and that they actualy never existed, pointing out the eventual distortion of compositions in Dutch paintings?!

On my turn I wonder how these critics fill in their days. Probably they never visited my country to see for themselves...

See the image of my valley above... to me a familiar almost daily site of natural cloud formations. No disorder of compositions in here what so ever!!

How I wish I could paint...

Shades

This early morning, on dad's old bistro table outside, shades of bright sunlight turn their rounds alongside the iron vase. Looking back at the image I took earlier this week of the white feather in the fresh fallen snow, spring is finnaly here. Two days ago I discovered the local farmer's animals grazing in the meadows along the provincial roads, joyfully jumping around and visibly happy to be outside again after a long dark winter in the stables. They had gathered again for their annual first picnics outdoors. I could not get enough of them, while driving I gazed at cows and their calfs, horses and ponies, sheep with their fluffy children. And so it is, relying and  trusting the farmers wisdom always ahead on upcoming weather forecasts. Although a chilly wind is still blowing, no more snow to come, freezing nights are over at last. I am looking forward to this new season and hoping to show you soon some spring images of my valley... so stay tuned!

Wishing you a all a springy weekend!!

Inevitable perishableness

Another holiday has passed. Dishes, cups and glasses are washed and stored, waiting for their new shining moments on a dressed table. Daily routine is taking over again, forcing us back to familiar activities, catching up, deadlines to make, common errands to do, rushing through time. Inevitable!

Yet sometimes suddenly experiencing the unusual, the uncommon, by pure chance or consciously, captured individually or within a crowd, making you stop, watching closer, touched by, moved until the swift moment rushes away in time as well, never to return again. Perishable! 

image captured this early morning of a white feather in the fresh fallen snow outside my door just before the wind blew it away