A LOVELY DAY OUT

with Mischa in Leiden.
My parents had moved from Arnhem to Zoeterwoude-Rijndijk, just a bit east of Leiden and when I was nearly 7 years old we had moved from there to the centre of Leiden. Their secondhand bookshop was located in the Papengracht and as kids we had been there often if not all the time.
In 1977 we, as many persons at that time had done, moved the bookshop to a little village, prefering countrylife to the crowdness of the city. In 1980 Piet Hein and I started to live in Kamerik too and Mischa was born there.
Coincidence brought Mischa for a couple of days to Leiden and she had asked me to join her there so that we could visit our familiar places before she was born.
It was a sunny day and lots of persons in the streets, festivities all around.
First we visited the Hortus botanicus and it is there were we both made our blipfotos.
Mischa's butterfly in the hothouse and my carnivorous plant at the top of the very high greenhouse at the entrance.
At the Pieterskerkplein many stalls with all different foods available and we sat and ate a caribean meal.
We visited the Korenbeurs, a covered market where my father stood every Saturday in the beginning, before he hired the house at the Papengracht.
And we visited the house where I had lived till I married, and many other places.
A very pleasant day!

My haiku:

Memory lane where
My sentiments lay buried
And revived for a day

And the proverb:

Die de pit wil hebben, moet de dop kraken.

Translation: Who want the kernel (or stone), must crack the shell.

Tired of the day, so my catching up with your journals will have to wait till tomorrow.


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