Not much impetus to do a full blog. I fear it would be tedious if I tried to give all the detail. And my laptop isn’t connecting to the hotel wifi. So just the bare bones of what we did each day, the inevitable cyclemetering and a few photos that I like. I can put up more photos when I’m back.
Continue readingOK, apparently I have to correct something I said yesterday. (II won’t trawl for typos just yet, though.) It’s true the building we’re in has hireable offices as well as 3 or four bedrooms. However, the building is scheduled to be demolished. I don’t see a need to do so. While it’s not a hotel in the sense of Ibis, Holiday Inn or other chains, it seems to be in perfectly good condition. (Possibly points off fro not having a lift.) So we assume the land-owners want to. build something taller. Meanwhile, it’s friendly, has an outside bar with a food-truck, as well as every popular indoors bar. So I hope execution is stayed.
Continue readingOh dearie dearie me: I’m beginning to understand why Deutsche Bahn’s reputation is going downhill. I love all the marshalling yards outside even relatively small stations, the bookshops that sell real books, the decent coffee, the various accents along the way. But a 6 1/2 hour journey that got delayed and delayed even more as we travelled: no thanks. Were we caught behind a local chugaboom? Or were we the local chugaboom holding up everyone else? Even cyclometer caught the bug, not mapping at all where we were despite restarting the phone:
Continue readingOn one of our previous visits to Noord Holland, we went to Marken, a small island in the IJsselmeer. So we decided to go and see what has changed and how much we could remember. (It doesn’t help that I’m envisaging Reichenau in the Bodensee as I type this.) Cyclemeter captured our bus journeys there and back again, walking around the island, and then my evening peregrinations back in Zaandam.
Continue readingAnd while France votes, and the UK starts to get used to a change of government, we are away from it. The first part of round and round is learning how to switch off again.
Hence travel south and east, by tram, train, coach, ferry, coach, and train to Zaandam. Yay, we are on holiday, and can relax. There is a bit of weather, but it’s not a pain.
Continue readingI need to get this in writing, so it’s out of my head.
About 2:30 today, I was standing at Holy Corner bus-stop, mutually moaning with an older white human about the lack of buses. This person asked me where I was going: to a LeithChooses meeting at McDonald Rd library. I can’t remember how this led to the person saying that foreigners ‘should be sent back where they came from’ – the person’s actual words. The person then ‘clarified’ that her ire was against foreign beggars, who ‘the government’ was aiding to come to the UK – I would know if I watched TV.
Continue readingMy sister has a friend who lives in northwest London and had a significant birthday on Saturday 6 April. My sister can’t travel that far on on her own, so I went south to take her to the birthday party. Our travel should have been
Continue readingI have no photos from today, probably due to lack of sleep on the train. (ÖBB still hasn’t contacted me, almost a week later, to tell me whether or not it has found my laundry-bag.) However, cyclemeter reminds me we did a bus-tour. We didn’t go north of the IJ on that trip, but we did take the metro as far north as we could on the next excursion.
Our first visit was to the Stadsarchief (city archives). It’s very worth visiting, not least because it appears to be on ‘Weasel Street’. (Here’s the tram-journey.). Then we took another tram as far east as we could get (IJburg) and watched boat-traffic along the IJ. Then Elly took me to a wonderful place. (here’s how we got there and back.)
So today we went west, and happened on a brand-new, very friendly restaurant. (Here’s that journey.). Then it was time to come home: bus to IJMuiden and ferry to North Shields
Bus from North Shields to Newcastle, then train back to Edinburgh
Berlin baby! Here’s how we got here. First, a train from Zaandam to Amsterdam Centraal; next, a train from Amsterdam Centraal to Berlin Haupbahnhof. (I have no idea why Cyclometer stopped recording before we even got to Hanover.) We arrived in the late evening, so don’t do any more than install ourselves in a hotel, then go back to the Haupbahnhof to eat at Hans im Glück. (Eating at Hans im Glück is one of the Deutsche Heilige Dreifaltigkeit: the others are shopping at a DM and doing laundry at an Eco-Express Waschsalon.)
Continue readinga back-up of https://friends-ssct.org
wibbelwobble
Good governance and leadership
Participatory Budgeting for the Leith Neighbourhood Network
Maximising the impact and value of library and information science research
News, funding opportunities, and support from Research, Innovation & Enterprise
Digital evidence that Bruce might have a life 