July 15, 2026

 Wednesday. Left around 10:15. Blacksmith. Small ring again, stuck to the saddle, creeping up the inclines. But it is riding, it is being outside. Warm and sunny, moderate winds out of the east. Busy on the Singel; the garbage trucks stink in this weather. Koningsweg to Wayen and Langeweg. There, a hare on the road who kept running away and eventually took off into the field to the right. Grasses and hedges beginning to look dry. We are in a drought. Sluispad to Beatrixsluizen, then Schipperspad. Just a handful of barges at the quays, probably because all skippers have lots of work due to low water levels in the rivers preventing anyone from carrying a full load. On the ARK still a few barges loaded down. Gele brug back into town and Møs, where they seem to have cancelled their Volkskrant subscription. AD instead--still undisturbed by 11:30. Two nuclear-armed powers engaged in warfare. Yesterday, the American president announced tolling charges for passage through a waterway he does not control; today he pulled back and instead announced major air strikes on Iranian infrastructure for next week. By the weekend, those will likely be postponed, and we'll hear about something else. The U.S. presumably is a key player in a diplomatic way out of Russia's war on Ukraine. That country's counteroffensive around Crimea by all accounts is taking a serious toll, certainly on Moscow's ability to supply its southern front in Ukraine, perhaps also on its overall hold on the peninsula. The best Ukraine can hope to achieve by these and other kinds of hits on Russia's ability to wage war is cease-fire talks, followed by a peace process. More likely today, unfortunately, until regime change in Moscow, is Russian escalation from the air, targeting civilian infrastructure. If there were to be regime-change, a cease-fire might be achievable given that the reason to remove the current leader would be his unwillingness to change course in his catastrophic war. For a longer-term outcome giving Ukraine a chance at survival as an independent nation, it would be hard to put any stock in what Washington may or may not be able to contribute--at least until there is regime change there too. Good luck to all of us, first and foremost Ukraine, getting through the next two-and-a-half years. In the time it took to get through the paper, just two cars violated the do-not-enter restriction at the Kievitstraat at Møs.