April 27, 2025

Left a little after 10. Blacksmith. On the radio prior, a matter-of-fact but still dispiriting discussion of how our populist government is incapable of getting anything done on the environment and climate, or for its alleged constituents, "the" farmers. Two years ago, under the previous government, we were getting on our way on some of these things, but since then opportunism and smoke screens have set the tone, starting with the leading party in that previous coalition government. In the city, lots of broken glass everywhere, because if you have a big party, making a mess of things just has to be part of it apparently. Koningsweg, Vechten, Achterdijk, Werkhoven, Nachtdijk. The fruit trees in full leaf now. Here and there a field with some flowers in evidence, but still a lot of what appears to be rye-grass with most biodiversity sprayed to extinction. It was very mild, not a cloud in the sky, and just a very light, northeasterly breeze. Lekdijk to Beatrixsluis. Lek before Culemborg almost a mirror; kayakers instead of freighters added to the effect. Jutphase brug, Merwedekanaal, and around the train station more broken glass. 

April 25, 2025

 Left a little after ten. Blacksmith. Mostly overcast with a chilly northeasterly wind. Pavement still a bit damp. Berenkuil, toward Zeist and around. On through Driebergen to Doorn. Molenweg, Pittesteeg (unpaved, quiet, beautiful), Rhodenstijnselaan. Whenever the sun peeked through, it got more comfortable. Langbroekerdijk glorious in the sun. The approach of Werkhoven would have been glorious too (village edge, a little lower than the land in front of it, land now with cows in it), had it not been for the large barns and storage buildings ruining the view. Achterdijk, Vechten, Kampong, Wilhelminapark. 

April 23, 2025

 Left a little before ten. Blacksmith. Fairly mild, with southeasterly breezes. Gray skies, but not as interesting as last week. Still, at the end of Gerverskop the light dropped down beautifully up ahead, toward Haarzuilens. All the early yellow daffodils alongside the bike path toward the Gele Brug are done, but later in the city I saw some new, white ones, amid some tulips. To be rid of the filthy crossing of the Thomas a Kempisweg is like living in a different world (here and there, things can still get better). Hermelijnvlinderpad, Alendorperweg, Rivierpad, Breukdijk. Koot off its nest at Gerverskop, but several more grebes nesting. Lambs everywhere, and some geese families (Scheendijk). A few young calves at the farm along the Middenweg, just past the Veenkade. Having the Zandpad open again makes life easier--as if a morning such as this one wasn't pleasant enough. Newspaper at Mos [highly irritating how Word for decades now, and ever more so it appears, makes it difficult to insert letters with accents and the like, such as the strike-through "o" in this case--forget on-line tools such as Blogger; it's how memories of WordPerfect stay alive]. We want to end the war, just that. We won't talk about the kind of war this has been, we just talk about ourselves, how we can't get what we think we need out of this. We just want this nuisance to go away, and if it means blaming--beating up on--the victim, that's what we'll do. So much easier than pressuring the aggressor. It's reminiscent (also in the paper) of how the old pope once said that Ukraine should have "the courage of the white flag." Or, as an old colleague (not a dumb or untrustworthy guy otherwise) repeated to me last week: if they lose, it doesn't affect me. 

April 20, 2025

Left a little before nine. Blacksmith. Sunny, cool northerly breezes. Blauwkapel, bike path, Korssesteeg, Nieuw Loosdrecht, 's-Graveland, Kortenhoef. Then Hilversum, Soest (Eng), Amersfoort, Leusden, Scherpenzeel, Amerongen. Too busy to see much. Hoogstraat, Maarn. The forests now also turning light green. Zeist, Huis ter Heide, Maartensdijk, Groenekan. People everywhere taking advantage of the good holiday weather. Nowhere was it crowded, probably because near-record numbers have gotten on airplanes to go somewhere, troubling news about the deteriorating state of the continent's glaciers notwithstanding.

April 19, 2025

Left a little before 10. Blacksmith. Sunny, with some light white cloud stripes and strokes in a mostly blue sky. Not warm, but just mild enough for summer gloves. Singel, Koningsweg, Wayen, Plofsluis, Beatrixsluis. Lots of people out, some apparently only having spotted the sunny skies from inside their houses prior to setting off and as a result dressing for summer, which it wasn't. Pleasure boats exiting the Beatrix locks toward the ARK. Vreeswijk deserted, Lekdijk to Radiolaan, past IJsselstein. Just outside IJsselstein, corner Broeksdijk, a duck with five or six chicks. Stuivenbergweg very flat, empty; one lone white bull. Very clear views also from the bike path between the Hollandse IJssel and the Nedereindseweg, but for the life of me I could not get a glimpse of the Dom with all the new stuff on the west side of town. Swan nesting near a gate at the Nedereindseweg. Merwedekanaal and the rest. Ending the war on day one/in week one/month one/first one hundred days--it's idiotic if you can't get yourself to recognize the nature of the conflict, if you turn it into an abstraction. So now they're getting impatient/frustrated/bored, they don't want to play any more, and they're no doubt lining up all the reasons why it's not any failing on their part.

April 16, 2025

Left around 9:30. Blacksmith. Cool, and a few small drops of rain. Gray skies, but many shades and shapes and directions at first. Cautious resumption of activities. Yellow Bridge, 't Zand, the oasis of the Alendorperweg. Rivierpad, Breudijk. After four days with warm weather and eventually also rain, it's definitely the end of early spring. Everything softer, thicker, greener. A grebe now also nesting, next to a koot, at Gerverskop. As another sign of real spring, some vacationing cyclists are beginning to appear. As a sign spring can be cruel in mid-April: drizzle after Gunterstein, all the way home and ever more chilly. 

April 11, 2025

Left just before 11 (recovery day). Blacksmith. Sunny, warming up quickly, winds out of the southwest. Merwedekanaal to Plofsluis to Lekdijk. Cargo ships up close along the Sluispad--the romantic imagination (it is very persistent, stretching back to the early days in Weesp, mid-1960s) always gets brought down to earth by the diesel fumes. In the end, they're just the trucks of the waterways. Korte Uitweg, Achterdijk. Views of Schalkwijk, and of the Werkhoven water tower. Lambs in lots of places. Zuwe, Nachtdijk, Leemkolkweg, through old Werkhoven and the tunnel. Past Odijk, through Bunnik and past Science Park to de Bilt and home, or Mos. In the paper a report on Russia's planned new offensive in Ukraine's northeast; and a report on how our migration minister will need a normal budget after all. Populists in power are being mugged by reality all over the place. At some point enough of their followers will see them for what they are; reality-based politicians and the rest of us will have to have a better story then.

April 9, 2025

Left around 9.15. Nikor. Mostly overcast, chilly northeasterly wind. Still no rain; it's starting to feel wrong. Full gloves and headband entirely appropriate. Ondiep to Straatweg to Nieuwersluis. Vecht to Nigtevecht. Rapeseed abundant now. Bridge open in Vreeland, larger sailboat motoring to wider, deeper waters than its home base of Loosdrecht. Velterslaan, Driemond, Stammerdijk, Overdiemerweg, ARK, Javaplein. Outside; not warm. In the paper the news of a U.S. arms build-up in the Persian Gulf. The report cited experts who fear a strike on Iran may be imminent. What a disaster that would be. Unfortunately, with the current people in charge in Washington and Jerusalem, it can't be ruled out. Iran has been weakened in the region, and possibly at home, and thus the hawks may think it's time to press the advantage. It's also possible that the build-up is just in support of the imminent talks with Teheran, but how do you not use all that assembled firepower when negotiations fail? We went down this road in 2002-2003, and this time could actually be worse, judging from some of the wargaming we have become aware of a long time ago already (I remember reading a report on that in the Atlantic, some two decades ago). BG2. Around noon it started clearing. The ride back with summer gloves and ears uncovered. Amstel, quiet side to Ouderkerk. Several koots nesting near the shore, and a family of geese by the side of the road. Ronde Hoep West, past the pretentious, ugly new mansions. More on the way, it appears. Botshol, Vinkeveen, and just after Donkereindsebos a hare in the field. A little later, in Portengensebrug, I spotted two hares to the right, when one of them shot across the road and took off toward the east. By then, the tailwind and the sun had made it comfortable. Haarzuilens, Hermelijnvlinderpad, and the rest.

April 6, 2025

 Left a little before nine. Blacksmith. Very sunny, quite cool. Winds out of the east. Straatweg to Breukelen. Fruit trees now also showing blossoms. Short wait along the Vecht; you see new things that way, such as half-hidden beautiful little lanes alongside the big old houses. Kortrijk, Haarzuilens, Harmelen, Benschop, Polsbroekerdam, Oudewater. Center shielded enough to sit outside comfortably. Lange Linschoten very manicured with its new wooden sheet piling supporting the dike on both sides. Lots more cows out now. Woerden. A guy on a regular bike wearing street clothes (cycling gloves) asked the way to Utrecht. He had come from Hoek van Holland into that stiff, cold easterly wind, and needed to go back there still. Any particular reason? No, he does these outings regularly. In case we thought of ourselves as tough. Kromme Rijn. Lots of light green willow trees, and more and more tulips. Harmelen, de Meern. First they went after foreign aid, but I'm not a needy foreigner, so I didn't speak up. Then they came for migrants, but I'm not a migrant, so I looked away. Then they came for federal workers, but I don't work for the government. Next they came for the law firms and media companies, but I don't care for lawyers or journalists, so I said nothing. Then they came for Medicaid, but I have my own policy, so I let them cut that too. And so on, and so forth. 

April 3, 2025

 Start at Houtplaats, Rheden/Posbank, around 10:30. Blacksmith. Green inner tube peeking through the surface of the tubular, flat after a few hundred meters, on the Heuvenseweg climb. The woods were still barren and fairly quiet, the open areas showed some yellow leaves on scattered bushes, apparently gorse (gaspeldoorn), not forsythia. A little lizard crossed the road right in front of us in the noonday sun. Cars were allowed on the ridge, but it really wasn't bad. Up and down and around sections such as Zijpenseberg, Lange Juffer, Rozenbos. A little cool at the start, but it warmed up quickly--summer already before 12. Tariffs all over the news. By all means, let's keep breaking lives, let's satisfy that need to throw our weight around. It's the only way we can begin to feel remotely secure. 

April 1, 2025

 Left around 9:15. Nikor. Chilly morning, winds out of the northeast. Could have used full gloves on the way up. Straatweg to Loenen. Bridge open (the pleasure boats are coming back), so west side of the Vecht. Vreeland bridge open too, so outside route back to the Vecht. Nigtevecht, Gein, Gaasp, Diem, ARK. Javaplein with the paper. Op-ed by a student arguing that if the government is going to encourage her generation to consider serving in the military, there has to be some quid pro quo--in effect, what about the priorities of our generation? It's the kind of thing too many potential Democratic voters said last year, before sitting out. Look where their priorities are now. It's not illegitimate to advocate for your own causes, far from it, but this is a big picture issue, or one of taking things in the right order. There are imperfect outcomes and then there are catastrophic ones. On to BG2. Then quiet side of the Amstel to Ouderkerk (scooter), to west side Ronde Hoep. My Ouderkerk knowledge has become very rusty. Ronde Hoep never disappoints with its spectacular vistas. Also some baby geese in the water. New white-grey mansion on its hill sticking out like a sore thumb of obnoxious ostentatiousness. Botshol, Donkereind, Portengensebrug, Haarzuilens, Gele Brug. Temperatures rose, but it never really warmed up.