Kibbeling, 6 ferries and a blister

Back on the road in the Netherlands

September 3rd has been front and centre in both my diary and what was left of my head after I smashed my face into a Scottish tree back in July. The 3rd was the date of my research trip back to the Netherlands, for my book ‘Orange Sky, Rising Water’, and I behaved like a good, obedient patient with the aim of making the trip.

That wasn’t easy. I had the twenty broken bones in my nose, the operation to glue it back into place, and the broken ribs to deal with. Not to mention concussion and a certain haziness in my brain for the first weeks. I still can’t wear glasses, so I’ve had to learn contact lensing (I can wear glasses suspended from my forehead with tape, which isn’t a great look and impossible when it’s above 15 degrees). My wife was worried. I was too, and I reassured her that I’d bail out if I didn’t feel like I was coping.

But I’m here, and it’s been great so far. I’ve been on six ferries, and did a fantastic walking loop around much of the glorious island of Texel. The North Sea water is still surprisingly warm.

Testing the water near where VOC fleets used to muster to sail to the Dutch East Indies.

So far I’ve had a tent and a cheap hotel, and I’ve got an old 1970s caravan and a night in the spare room of an old WRI friend and colleague to look forward to. The videos are also going well, although I’ve noticed that my brain/mouth interface sometimes doesn’t work as fluently as before July - it works though, and it’s improving. Phew. (Each of the ten walks in the book will be accompanied by four shortish videos (and podcasts), which I’ll start putting out once I’ve time to breathe.)

The main highlight has been… the Netherlands. Arriving at Schiphol always puts a smile on my face - the blue uniforms, the sense that the country really knows what it’s doing. But it’s the variety of the walks that I have loved. Texel had town and farmland, beech forest and heather-covered sand dunes, then the beach stretching off into the horizon. Today’s walk in Amsterdam started out at the Bijlmemeer estate - a utopian building project that became a nightmare, even before a 747 crashed into it in 1992 - then the Johan Crujff Arena where Ajax play, then parkland and polders, the Amstel river, the vibrancy of the inner suburbs, and then Golden Age Amsterdam itself, stuffed full of puffing, sweating tourists and managing to rise above the tawdry gift shops and clouds of cannibis smoke. I saw one poster advertising a behind-the-scenes tour of a pole dancing club. No kidding.

Oh, and I spent 45 minutes in the stimulating company of Geert Mak, the hybrid journalist/historian that we can all aspire to be.

Geert Mak - I almost ran out of video while we were chatting away.

And I ate at my favourite restaurant (in the world?), Rosario’s, which serves astonishing Mexican food. And kibbeling, of course.

Mmmm. Kibbeling.

Worryingly, the trip so far has filled me with a concerning level of optimism about this terrific country. Bijlmemeer was far removed from the dystopian ghetto that it had been before Flight 1862 crashed into it. The food has been delicious. A few hooligans on fatbikes aside, Dutch society is well behaved and multiculturalism seems more robust. Maybe it’s the early September sun, maybe it’s the evidence of my own eyes, or maybe it’s just that I’m delighted to be here complete with a new nose and a sense that I’m on the mend at last.