She who leaves everything , including using a free day travel card , to the last minute can't be picky , which is why I ended up in Utrecht on the coldest , foggiest day of the week . Luckily , I'd put on layers of warm clothes ( though drew the line at the 1930's stomach warmer above, pattern available on request , since it looks rather itchy ) and could spend a happy half-hour doing what retired chaps /chapesses do everywhere and watch men dig holes .
Then it was time to thaw out and the Museum of Modern Aboriginal Art www.aamu.nl is just the place to do it . The permanent exhibition on the top floor was a mass of warm ochre , caramel and chocolate and the Education Room was full of local children's own wonderful interpretations of aboriginal paintings .
Actually , Utrecht is full of colour and paintings even on gloomy days .
It's satisfyingly full of little shops , odd corners and little alleyways and you can always find something new . I loved these paintings , stuck in a window of a silent , empty building
Talking of which , by this stage I was chilled to the bone and resisted this last temptation on the corner of a sidestreet
14 comments:
I don't know that stomach warmer may not have been that itchy... I could do with it now as teh cold is creeping back after a week of delightfully wram weather..
PS would love to know what the finger was pointing to!
I'm thinking that the stomach warmer might also be a back warmer, and, as such, a Very Good Idea!
You go on such interesting adventures!
Long ago, in another lifetime, I had a pen friend in Utrecht. Neither of us understood the other's language though so the relationship was doomed....Pity. I would love to have visited her. Utrecht looks and sounds like a nice place to spend an afternoon. I could easily pass a few hours wandering around those shops, with or without a friend.....but better with!
I have some Uzbekistani pottery that I bought when in Russia, very useful but not warm!
In the same vein, they still wear those backwarmer things over there, knitted with dog hair very often. Sounds grim but actually lovely and soft (I have dog socks to prove it).
I do think that the best thing about not working is to take off on solitary journeys and just follow your nose around previously undiscovered corners. I'm not sure I could have resisted the pointing finger though suspect it was the sensible thing to do.
A stomach warmer can come in really handy, you know. I should sit down and knit one immediately. That cold wind off the Nordsee takes no prisoners.
Never heard of a stomach warmer... always thought it was the bits that stuck out that got cold first. Oh, wait...
The two paintings are beautiful, and I feel a sudden need for a stomach-warmers. I see legwarmers are back in fashion, so why not, I say to myself.
Yes, a stomach warmer is definitely the way to go. I have a small dachshund who does the job quite well, but is slightly problematic when on the move!
But where was it pointing to?
That child isn't enjoying the back/stomach warmer at all, is she? So perhaps not; thank you for the offer though.
I'll give the stomach warmer a miss (it was liberty bodices complete with little rubber buttons in my day). There's a ginormous hole being dug in front of a house round the corner from here. I've actually visited Utrecht, very briefly and en route to a holiday/bungalow park, when the girlie was a tot.
Aboriginal art museum in Utrecht? Okay, why not?
The hands in those paintings are so ... real.
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