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Dag Fotos 2025-11-18

A rich and busy harbour and trading city in the 16th century, Arnemuiden

A statue of a woman carrying two buckets stands against a brick wall. A brick church with a tall steeple is surrounded by parked cars and bare trees on a cloudy day. A traditional windmill stands behind a brick building on a cobblestone street with a white van parked nearby. A peaceful riverside scene features a grassy path, moored boats, and overcast skies with houses in the background.

#Arnemuiden #photo #foto

Dag Fotos 2025-11-17

Auto-generated description: Waves crash against rows of weathered wooden posts on a sandy beach. Auto-generated description: Foamy waves crash against wooden posts jutting out from the sandy shore into the sea. Auto-generated description: Foamy waves wash onto a sandy beach. Auto-generated description: A vast ocean extends to the horizon under a partly cloudy, blue sky.

Suddenly the sun came out

#Domburg #photo #foto

Apple Bergkäse Focaccia

A freshly baked focaccia topped with cheese and small chunks of apple rests on a cooling rack.

Bergkäse

#bread #brot #baking #backen #sourdough #sauerteig #focaccia #teamsauerteig #brotbacken

Slowly getting there

The first Cologne trading good I’m looking at is stoneware. It was produced in the wider area around Cologne from Raeren in Limburg down to Höhr-Grenzhausen in the Westerwald.

A hand-drawn map labeled Rheinisches Steinzeug features the Rhine various cities like Cologne and Siegburg, and dots marking locations such as Raeren, Frechen, and Höhr-Grenzhausen

The goods were traded from the Alter Markt in Cologne and went all over northern Europe and from The Netherlands and England to Africa, Indonesia, America (North and South) and to Australia.

Steinzeug

My first trip went to Frechen, though I have to go back as I managed to miss the kilns.

Stoneware from Frechen

A Bartmannskrug, a bearded ceramic jug, with intricate designs is displayed alongside other pottery on a glass shelf.

The next trip will then probably go to Siegburg.

#retirement #history #cologne #cycling #photography

Today a trip to the Kölner Flora

Auto-generated description: A formal garden features a series of planters with flowers and tall grasses leading to a grand building with large arched windows and flags. Auto-generated description: A large, vibrant green leaf with some brown spots is illuminated by sunlight, surrounded by other leaves near a body of water. Auto-generated description: A bee is perched on a pink cosmos flower amidst green foliage and other flowers. Auto-generated description: White flowers with yellow centers are surrounded by green leaves.

#köln #koeln #cologne #flora #photo #photography #foto #fotografie

Getting on

It’s been 6 weeks since starting the #pension #adventure

It still feels like an extended holiday. Which, as far as it goes is fine. BUT it also means that I’m mentally waiting to agree what to do today with E. which does not help with establishing new habits.

Here’s a short recap of what happened

clearing out the work flat

Done, was as much fun as it sounds like

vacation

We did spent a week of vacation on Walcheren, which was, as always, very nice and relaxing. Though because of weather the kites stayed in their bag.

cycling

September was not a good month, I was still working half of it and then we did clean out the flat.

Oktober is much better, I’ve done 375 km so far, and there is still a week (with a lot of rain forecasted) to go.

photography

Still getting to grips with the new camera. I’m quite happy with it. I’m now about 1800 pictures in and starting to appreciate the possibilities. Also I’ve started sorting through our photos and putting them into more of a system than one big bucket.

Still open to do’s:

  • Finish the organizing
  • Finish sorting into family photos and “good” photos
  • Start grading the “good” photos and distill what lessons there might lurk for future photos
  • Finish scanning the pre-digital photos. Both ours and the photos I inherited from my parents

local history, cycling and photography

The library membership was achieved, first books lended and almost finished. The books I took out look at Colognes early medieval and medieval history. I’ve also looked through a lot of online sources and am compiling a list of goods that were traded in Cologne.

This compilation has already given me some future cycling destinations, so the basic idea seems to work.

I also had some ideas on visualising the flow of goods and have recruited the daughter to help draw / map this.

other stuff

My plans for retirement also included

  • Learning the ukulele (pending)
  • Start archery (pending)
  • Start Tai Chi (pending)
  • Languages (pending)
  • Volunteering (pending)

But, other, useful stuff got done

We renovated the kids rooms and now we each have our own room to do stuff in without regard to the other. Which will be helpful, as, see above, I’m still feeling a bit like vacationing. I’ve also cooked a quite a few new dishes, some of which will go into rotation