Society Took the Farm, and Farmed it Out…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

This is another post in my series about historical Den Haag (The Hague). Every city grows and changes over time, but some specific areas grow and change more than others.

When the Haags Gemeentearchief  (the Hague City Council Archive) put up billboards around the city  to celebrate their 125th Anniversary a few years ago and Himself and I made it my mission to try and photograph them all.

The Gemeente (Council) placed the billboards as close as possible to where the photos had been originally taken and they made a page on their website (Dutch language only) that showed where their physical locations were etc.

Sadly both the website and the billboards were removed afterwards and so I was delighted that we managed to photograph almost every one of them with not just the “old” views that were already displayed on the billboards, but also my own photos of the areas surrounding the billboards as they look today.

This particular photograph is captioned: “Uitzicht van Monnickendamplein 17 ” (View from Monnickendamplein 17) and shows the market garden / glass houses that apparently this area was well known for as they were in 1939.

Himself told me that he seemed to remember a few open spaces that featured gardening still in the district when he was a kid, but those have long since been built on, as various apartment blocks dating from the 1970′s and 1980′s will attest.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

I tried to find some historical facts from the Hague city Archive, but since this area mostly consisted of glass houses (as opposed to old established buildings) there was no information to be found.

Granted I spent hours looking and not days, but at least I tried.

This is  one of the billboards where, if someone who lived the area in 1939 could step directly into 2013, they would get the shock of their lives.

So much has changed, and the food, instead of coming from a market garden or greenhouse a block away, now comes from supermarkets like the Albert Hein (AH) on the other side of the road.

The land of course rose acutely in value as new houses were needed, farmland and it’s earnings could not compete with the return value of residential land,  (market forces and all that)   … it’s fate was sealed.

Society took the farm, and farmed it out to way beyond the city limits.  How little our food used to travel, and how much further it has to now. They call this progress… but I’m not so very certain that it really is.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

Honing Our Survival Skills… Before Packing Bags and Upping Sticks…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

One thing we appreciate a lot is spending time with family and friends in New Zealand.

For our kids, it’s more than just a chance to catch up with a cold drink, a cake, BBQ bread or biscuits (cookies), it’s often also a chance to play in a real garden, a treat since we don’t have one at home.

At my cousins’s place in Christchurch there are more interesting bits and bobs to take in, explore and have adventures with than an excited Little Mr. can manage to fit into an afternoon, but to give him credit, he did try.

Cousin “P” counts mountaineering as one of his many talents and could very seriously give Ray Mears and Bear Grylls a run for their money when it comes to survival skill knowledge so when Little Mr. spied some timber, sticks and rope, Cousin “P” was only too happy to teach him to set up his very own improvised bivvy.

Now I’m not too sure how much of the work Little Mr. did, because they were busy for quite a while… but even if he wasn’t the main architect he was very involved as “project supervisor”.

He even tried it out for size and helped “P” dismantle it all completely afterwards. I loved the finishing touch of the “campfire” just outside the door. This is where our kids get the opportunity to get their hands dirty, a chance to be like Kiwi kids instead of like the Dutch city kids they are the rest of the time.

Santa had given “G”  (my cousins wife) a set of specialist garding tools for Christmas yesterday and to my amazment Kiwi Daughter took a shine to a trowel-like thingy that has a spike-thingy attached to dig out weeds that have long roots.

It’s sure to have a proper technical name but sadly I have to confess that my gardening knowledge extends roughly as far as knowing the difference between tulips and roses and if you can’t grow it to eat it, I get distracted quick anyway.

No-one ever accused me of being green-fingered. I love flowers but no one in their right mind would leave any in my care as I rely on the “when they are lying down on the ground looking severely pathetic” method of remembering that they might actually be, at that stage severly begging for water.

I used to get allocated the job of weeding as a kid, a job I liked because of the instant gratification of seeing progress. It did however mean that no one ever showed me the basics of learning to grow stuff, …my parents did that with my sister as she complained a lot about doing weeding.

Now I watch as Kiwi Daughter happily digs out weeds with said gardening gadget and makes steady progress as small mound starts to pile up beside her. Curses for us that our balconies at home only get late afternoon sun … pity, because learning to grow something together might actually be fun.

Once we have prised our offspring away from the tree-house in the garden, it’s time to head back to the B&B… we have a car trip to get ready for … so it’s quite literally time to “up sticks”…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

Suspicious signs that serious gardeners may be close by…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

Christmas Lights… Southern Hemisphere Style!

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

The good thing about writing about this trip a short while after  the event, is that we get to have Christmas twice over!

… On one hand it might have been nice to have posted this in “real time” but reality is that there’s only so much you can get done in a day and after any activities  I really needed my afternoon naps more than I needed to be logging on and making blog posts.

My foot is healing well, and slowly but surely gaining back significant strength and flexability but since I’m still without mobility in the area directly below my toes, the crutches are still a frustrating but necessary evil. We tailor our days so that I can have time to elevate my foot, take pain relief and sleep after exercise and so far that’s working well.

My aunt and uncle tell us that there is a house a short drive away that has an amazing display of Christmas lights and decorations and that if we can keep the kids up long enough (it’s summer so darkness falls sometime around 10:30 p.m.) that we should go and enjoy the light show.

Actually they also mentioned that there’s an even bigger one around here somewhere but didn’t know the specific address.

We tried to follow their instructions involving various reference points, rights, lefts and straight-a-heads but since we have a well known penchant for getting lost, it’s hardly a surprise that in the end we gave up driving around in circles and were content with a visit to just one really well decorated house.

The night is warm, it’s now well dark and the festively dressed gentleman owner is outside to welcome people who are loitering on the footpath  wanting to look but a little unsure if they should proceed further onto the property.

He assures us that we are all welcome to come up the side path and up to the front window to see it all.

Amazingly many parts of the display are mobile, the little group of deer at the back of the property gently sway their heads, the santa and snowman see-saw actually moves like one, and the myriad of little houses etc that are displayed in the front windows have combinations of winking or changing colour lights, skating, walking or turning figures, and even one with four tiers with trains of decreasing sizes going around on each level.

Around the roof of the house, along the fences and in the trees there are lights, lights and more lights.

I took photographs but they really can’t communicate the amazing atmosphere that was generated around this garden, Christmas music poured softly out of the door of the house and it was lovely.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

To be honest, Christmas decorating of this type is only just starting to catch on in the Netherlands, in recent years a few people go all out, often using the limited space that their balconies provide and but mostly people decorate simply or not at all.

We have a set of little lights that we can tape to our front window, and yes you can set them to flash annoyingly, disco style, but we prefer the slow colour change setting.

I’m in two minds… I like the fact that our lights and others like them bring a little cheer into a dark and cold winter street…

…some of the decorations inject a little brightness and  humour and as a parent the game of  “spotting” these lights in house windows or balconies is brilliant for distracting grumpy, fighting children who are sitting in the car, tired out at the end of long days of whirlwind of pre-Christmas events …but sometimes when the various bits are thrown together they can look a bit disjointed and tacky.

I like “tat”and “kitch” sometimes but in severe moderation… and I can never quite put my finger on why I might like one decoration and say  ”ooh, that’s sweet” and then go “um, maaaybe not” or “over my dead body” to the next.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

Like most things in life, personal preference is everything.

Most of these bits and pieces are cute…but maybe the piled up soft toys (I didn’t take a photo) or the parachuting Santa were a step too far?

One item tried to be cute but looked a bit strange to me… a blow-up Santa inside a plastic blow-up ball, it as supposed to be a snow-globe, was plugged in and there were zillions of tiny polystyrene balls being blown around inside it …

…but I thought it looked like Santa was trapped inside a plastic bubble since you could hardly see the tiny balls and they certainly didn’t show up in my photos.

All in all though this was an amazing display and I loved it, the atmosphere was really magical and people were stopping and coming for a look from far and wide.

I talked to the owner of the house and he said that it took weeks and weeks of preperation, but that when he saw the smiles on people’s faces it was all worth it.

I certainly appreciated his hard work… the photos don’t really do it justice… it’s magical!

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

This Santa is huge! (it’s tied to a fence that about 1.8 m / 6 feet tall)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

Parachute Santa…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

I think these are kitch… but cute. What do you think?

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

Maybe It was Our Pee’ing in the Paddock that Did It…???

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

On this part of our New Zealand adventures, I’m taking a break from looking at damaged buildings and ruminating on the past and am busy getting organised for Christmas Day 2011 (which when I started these photos and jotted down my notes was less than a week away).

We had been visiting my Aunt and Uncle the day before and were discussing what was on offer at the local Market Gardens on Marshlands Road when Kiwi Daughter asked out of the blue if we could go raspberry picking like we did last trip to NZ.

I’m delighted that my ultra city-kid daughter loved the last experience enough to suggest a return visit this trip.

The fact the she adores raspberries probably helps … Little Mr.  hasn’t yet acquired the taste and will pick for a while but gets bored after a bit.

My Aunt suggests a place this side of town rather than heading to to Tai Tapu on the south side of the city like we did last time, so the next morning we piled Family Kiwidutch into the car and went in search of raspberries.

To  Kiwi Daughter’s dismay there turned out to be no self-picking possibilities for the public until after Boxing Day (December 26th) …probably because they want to get the Christmas rush over, beforehand and the little boxes of raspberries you can buy from the berry farms at present have most certainly,  a far higher profit margin.

We do a U-turn and start to head back when all of a sudden I see a sign… Pea picking, pick your own peas!!!

Himself has always wondered at me, whooping with delight  when I spied fresh peas in their pods for the first time all those years ago in The Netherlands. (tiny side-street grocer shop in Delft close to Oude Kerk, I even remember exactly where!) He had never eaten a raw pea out of the pod in his life and he thought I’d gone mad.

I promptly bought a bag of peas in their pods and proceeded to shell them and eat the peas raw… now he really thought I had lost my mind…why didn’t I take them home and cook them? … even better, skip the hard work and get a packet of frozen ones from the supermarket.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

He had no clue what he was missing.

He does now though understand my love of raw peas… we have a long standing pact that we will celebrate Valentines Day any day except February 14th because we despise the merchandising of it all.

Therefore sometimes in the summer months my true love turns up with a grin on his face and presents to me a bag full of peas in their pods, and I’m always delighted because peas in their pods aren’t particularly easy to find here in The Netherlands and nor are they cheap so I know he has made a detour or siezed the opportunity when he’s seen them… and if that ain’t love I don’t know what is.

We turned into the driveway to see a shed  that’s a converted shipping container (these are certainly in vogue in Christchurch at the moment!)  … an honesty box, buckets and a paddock full of peas.

I stuck to the outer edges because crutches and paddocks full of low growing plants are not mutually compatable and we paid for two buckets so that we could take one lot to a friend.

What I didn’t expect was that Little Mr and Kiwi Daughter would take to pea picking like pro’s.

They delighted in it and after a first aprehensive look at the contents of the pea pods, and with worried looks on their faces as they popped their first raw pea into their mouths, … chewing they suddenly looked amazed and delighted at how sweet they were soon stuffing themselves with raw peas.

Considering that Little Mr. will happily push cooked peas around a plate going “ew, don’t like these”,  this was a revelation.

Whilst opening some of the pods they of course a little clumsy as they got the hang of it and dropped some of their peas so I dredged out every corny pea/pee line I could think of… “Little Mr just pee’d on the ground” , “oh no… Kiwi Daughter just pee’d on her shoes” and of course they had hysterics and repeated the “jokes” seemingly a thousand times, each time finding it funny all over again as kids naturally can.

To my delight, not only were the peas totally sweet and delicious, but the plants were really heavily laden too.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

We heard from a fellow picker who had a family connection to the place that apparently this season had been a bumper crop .. the best in years.

Even with numberous stops to shell peas and feed our faces, between the four of us we filled two large buckets in next to no time.

Later, back at the B&B I start to shell the peas and the kids come in from trampoline play and are due to get ready for bed but instead get diverted in a competition as to who can shell the most in the shortest time.

I’m clearly winning  because the full dish I have in front of me is the third one I’ve filled but the competitive  bug has bitten them and together we shell a heap of peas.

The kids were so enthralled with picking that they asked  if we could go again so we decided to come out again with some friends and their son and get some more a few days later for my Aunt and Uncle so that they can have them for Christmas Day dinner,…. and I’m keen to take another bag to shell and use as healthy nibbles.

Two days later we go pea-picking for a second time.

I borrowed a small folding chair from Rae at the Hidden Haven B&B and having a little seat made it a lot easier than leaning on one crutch and bending down all the time. With our friends and kids we picked another four buckets between us, sitting talking as we picked and laughing a lot and of course the kids spent the whole time rehashing “pee” one-liners too.

Little did we know that tranquil sunny morning, that that very afternoon would be spent trying to calm terrified children,  connect with friends and relatives to make sure everyone was safe as the earth shook violently under our feet and everything around us trembled.
This was after all, the Christchurch morning of the 23rd of December 2011.

(for an update on what happened on 23rd Dec : http://kiwidutch.wordpress.com/2011/12/24/the-surprise-that-now-isnt-and-ones-that-definitely-were/   )

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

Most Creative use of Space I’ve seen for a Long Time…

Simple picture post today:  Still in France, we were driving to one of our friends homes when I asked Himself if we could stop so I could get a quick photo.

It looks like a garden centre and on the end wall of one of the buildings there is an amazing plant display. An eye-catching and very practical use of space.

Pity my photos don’t do it justice, we couldn’t reverse further without creating complications with cars and displays at the entrance and getting out and trying to get photos on crutches was literally a step too far. But anyway you get the general idea.  How cool is this? methinks: Very!

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

No, …Not *just* Tulips From Amsterdam…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

Ok, even if you can’t remember the tune or the words, you may at least have heard of the Title of the famous song “Tulips from Amsterdam“…

…but they aren’t the only flowers that the Dutch love.

Apartment living means that many Dutch city dwellers don’t have any garden of their own, but where there are steps, footpaths, windows and balconies, the inner gardener of the Amsterdam populous blooms at every opportunity.

Sometimes in the form of window boxes, sometimes just a few demur potted plants, sometimes squeezed onto the pavements, the spaces may be limited but the imagination on how to use it  is not.

In my first photo, the brown thing at bottom left, is a bollard to stop cars driving on the pavement… so yes, this ensemble is directly on the footpath outside their front door LOL.

And if you are weary from walking and admiring the blooms, there is ample space for quick rest on these over-sized chairs or this massive wheelbarrow  / bench (it’s about three quarters the length of a single bed!)

I did come across this flower (second photo) that I have never seen before and don’t know the name of.. . Wow, the form, texture and colours! this takes my appreciation of flowers to a whole new level and it’s my brand new all time favourite flower!

Granted, I do have to confess to being a little (ok, if I’m really honest),  severely horticulturally challenged so not knowing what it is, is par for the course.

If anyone knows what it’s called and can tell me, I’d love to know!

 

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

The Interior Design Craze that led to a Global Giant…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

Another post in my “Billboard” series, discovering the old and new behind the The Haags Gemeentearchief (the Hague City Council Archive) Billboards that were set up for the short time to celebrate their 125 year anniversary.

This building shows the headquarters of the Royal Dutch Shell Group on the de Carel van Bylandtlaan in the Hague.

The text on the billboard says: “Bataafsche Petroleummaatschappij aan de Carel van Bylandtlaan circa 1920“

…which is a little hard to translate literally, so maybe it’s easier to  tell you that the “de Bataafsche Petroleum Maatschappij“  refers to an old Dutch oil company which was a predecessor of  NAM Nederlands aardgas maatschappi (Dutch Natural Gas company).
“Carel van Bylandtlaan” is the street name where the building is located and where the billboard photo was taken in 1920.

The first thing that is immediately apparent is that the building has been greatly expanded… but Wow, without the billboard  to compare things to, you would never know. If only more “extensions” these days could be so sympathetically done!

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

I took photos of the building and wanted to take some more detailed close ups of the ironwork on the doors. However, the buildings’ security staff came out and said that whilst they were happy for me to photograph the building itself,  to please not photograph any closeups of the doors.

Therefore, you’ll have to make do with a close-up of part of the stonework  further up instead.

I did some research on the company and via their website found various bits of information which I have written up here…

Marcus Samuel was a London antique dealer who wanted to expand his business.

In 1833 he added oriental shells to his stock to capitalize on the new craze of using them in interior design.  Demand grew to the extent that he began importing shells from the Far East, thus began Marcus Samuel’s import and export business.

By 1886 the business was in the hands of sons Sam and Marcus Samuel junior and  well established in the export of machinery, tools and textiles, and the import of rice. copper, silk and china to and from the Far East and also the trade in commodities of sugar, flour and wheat worldwide.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

On a trip to Japan, Marcus jr.  became aware of the  newly developing oil trade and saw a solution for a problem in the industry. Oil was being transported in barrels, which were prone to leaking and their shape did not best utilize the space on the holds of the ships transporting them.

Marcus and Sam commissioned  steamers that could hold oil in large compartments, then thus the first bulk oil tanker the “Murex” was born.

They quietly built bulk oil storage units at ports, using for the first time, the new Suez Canal.
They worked quietly and quickly so that news would not leak out to the dominant oil company of the day, Rockefeller’s “Standard Oil“.

The maiden voyage of the “Murex” through the Suez Canal revolutionised oil transportation and greatly reduced the cost by vastly increasing the volume that could be carried per ship.
Marcus jr and Sam initially called their company “The Tank Syndicate” but in 1897 renamed it the “Shell Transport and Trading Company.”

When a major oilfield was discovered in Sumatra, J.B August Kessler of the “Royal Dutch” company oversaw the building of pipelines and a refinery at Pankalan Brandan. Kessler was joined in 1896 by a young marketing director, Henry Deterding who was instrumental within the company until the outbreak of World War Two.

Marcus Samuel’s dependence on his Russian producers left him vulnerable and he decided to seek other sources of oil, and the Far East was the next logical step. In Borneo he came up against Royal Dutch Petroleum, one of the region’s biggest competitors.

The two companies joined forces to protect themselves against the might of Standard Oil, forming a sales organisation in 1903, called the “Asiatic Petroleum Company“. They went on to discover of oil in Texas.

Full merger of the two companies into the “Royal Dutch Shell Group” came in 1907. There were two separate holding companies with Royal Dutch taking 60% of earnings and Shell Transport taking 40%. The merger transformed the fortunes of both companies. Under the management of Henry Deterding they turned from struggling entities to successful enterprises within twelve months.

In 1904, the scallop shell or “pecten” replaced Shell Transport’s first marketing logo, a mussel shell. In various forms it has remained in use ever since, becoming one of the best known corporate symbols in the world.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

Watch how the City Marches into the Market Gardens…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

The Haags Gemeentearchief (the Hague City Council Archive ) celebrated it’s 125th  by placing many large billboards of photographs  around the city.

All of them are photos of various points in the city taken between 20 and 150 years ago… and all are situated as close to the spot as possible (and where practical) to where the original photos were taken, so that viewer of the billboard can see both the past and present views.

I took photos of many of them whilst they were on view.

I am standing taking these photos on a four-way intersection. As per usual with Dutch streets,  streets often change names at intersections. In this case each of the branches of the four-way intersection sports a different name.

If you are looking towards Tram Number 3 then the street you see will be Arnold Spoelplein, the same street behind you on the other side of the intersection then changes name to Lisztstraat.

If you have Arnold Spoelplein on your left side and Lisztstraat on your right, then the road in front of you (pointing in the direction of Laan Van Meerdervoort) will be Aaltje Noordewierstraat and behind you is then Tramstraat (upon which ironically there are no tram lines LOL).

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

Thus the four streets  leading away from this one spot each have different names .. but in general, Tramstraat leads more to the district called Loosduinen and Aaltje Noordewierstraat leads to a district called Waldeck .

So, Now that I have you acquainted with the area, we can proceed to the billboard photo.

The Text on the billboard says: “Gezicht vanaf de verffabriek Premier op een deel van de toekomstige wijk Waldeck. Foto: Dienst Stadsontwikkeling en Volkshuisvesting, maat 1949.”

Translation: View from the  “Premier” paint factory towards a part of the future neighbourhood Waldeck. Photo:  Urban Development and Housing Department , March 1949.

As you can see, this area has changed vastly since 1949.  Long gone are the market gardens that backed onto what used to be the outer edge of the city.

Today the view includes the  Loosduinen terminus of  The Hague’s Tram Line 3, apartments blocks, general housing  and a former post office (building by the empty tram halt with orange signs).  As per recent city council environmental efforts, the grasses by the tram stop have not been mown in the deliberate attempt to encourage bees, insects and butterflies.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

Just think…  probably seventy to eighty years ago the caterpillar ancestors of these butterflies had probably been munching on lettuce and cabbage leaves in the market gardens.

Hey Birdie ! .. come live with me ?

I like wood, I like stone, I like metalwork… I like quirky, whimsical things that are hopefully not too kitsch. Some days  you just stumble upon something you fall in love with.

This belongs to one of my neighbours. If  it ever goes missing  they know to come search my house first LOL.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)