*blushing* I drove the windy miller to his usual Saturday leading the volunteers and various lads at the mill this morning (practising driving (a) on the wrong side of the road and (b) on the wrong side of the car) but we were a bit later than his normal arrival time. You can see the mill from some way off because of the flat landscape, and when we were about half a mile away, the WM could see the sails were already turning and exclaimed: 'There are flags on the sails!'. As we got closer, we realised what they were. There was a Dutch tricolour on one sail, and a Union flag on the opposite one (bought specially off t'internet). And there were muffins and stroopwafels to have with coffee there this morning. Then I came home, made soup, tidied up a bit, and watched Alec Guinness in Cromwell on BBC 2 which you can get here. Bloody marvellous :o).
[pen] Nice. Watch out for the speed cameras ;o). The cable channels carry only the BBC (for copyright reasons, apparently) but if you live near the coast you can get all the UK channels (analogue ones, only probably) on an aerial.
Thanks all :o) Back to the mill tonight - it's floodlit farming night, so farms and mills on the island of Hoekshe Waard (that's this one) will be floodlit for busloads of sightseers to tour. This morning's trip to the small supermarket lead me past two market-stall type vans in the main street of this large village/small town. One was a cheesemonger, on whose stall I spotted a small solitary block of English cheddar, bright orange and tightly encased in plastic, amongst the big wheels of Dutch cheese and the small morsels of some of the better-known French cheeses. There are so many good British cheeses, but none of them are known here. Hardly any of them are known behind the counters of Tesco either, but that's a different problem. *goes to chivvy up the British Cheese Marketing people*.
I was putting together my advent chocolate feast when my internet connection broke - actually the wind dropped on the windy miller's wifi network. So if anyone can polish off the chocolates and start on the cheese, they'd be welcome to do it.
[Phil] I do, mostly - the potatoes here are particularly good, they actually taste of potato. But if they're going to import some cheese from the UK, you'd think they'd cart the good stuff about, not the orange plastic-wrapped-in-plastic stuff, wouldn't you? They seem to manage to bring in some decent French cheese.
[Pen] Actually, the Dutch tend to like their plasticky orange cheeses - Edam and Gouda being cases in point - but some of the smoky varieties are very nice, and you should be able to get tastier Boerenkaas and goat cheeses if you look hard enough. I don't know where your windmill is but I assume there isn't an English shop round the corner. Are there no local farmers who make their own? Have you tried whingeing to Windy? On an unrelated note, are you coming to Othello? I can put you up...
[IS,P!] I'm almost ashamed to admit it, and please don't take it personally, but theatre ain't my bag. I struggle to appreciate drama and hardly watch films - Jan and I went to the cinema for the first time together in December, two years after we met. Sooo I will leave an Othello seat for someone who will appreciate it more.Perhaps we should have a Brussels Sprouting Pilg at some point though.
[pen] I remember being aghast in a supermarket in Perigord (admittedly in a fairly ex-pat-filled town), and seeing Red Leicester amongst the French cheeses. Especially galling was the £11 per kg price tag!
[Softers] Have left a question for you in AVMA - I assumed you would be looking in there. Perhaps a reply in here might be best, if that's OK with you. [ Then all will be revealed :-)]
[Soft] Ah - I've just seen it. Thanks. The reason I asked - have to go to St Helier to do some work in early Feb and thought it might be nice to connect. But as you're not there .... :-(
Sunny and very cold today in Zuid Holland. We may even yet go for a bike ride. I have no idea what my windy miller is doing downstairs while I'm upstairs trying to write something, but it sounds like he's reorganisisng something and I'm afraid to go and look.
[IS,P!] why certainly. He has a blue coat, red neckerchief and a brown upturned-flowerpot hat. The coat and neckerchief are in the laundry basket waiting to be ironed, but he keeps the hat in the car.
Good grief, woman, what are you thinking about? Everyone from where I came from has a flat hat (they, the wearers, are said to also have whippets and cobblestones and ghosts, but that's just not true). Even I have one! (pictures available at £150 each, on request - and after a full security cheque (price to be negotiated)).
[Dujon] You have one what? Ghost? Cobblestone? Whippet? And anyway we'll have the RSPCA round to you for ironing your whippets. You don't need to iron a flat hat - the incessant beating of the rain on it will do that for you.