Scenes from Vlieland - part four: the trees

As I said yesterday, Vlieland is basically a big collection of dunes that forms an island. Originally there were no trees here, but to protect the town from the inblowing sand several patches of woodlands were made. This means there are no really old trees here. The oldest are a little over a hundred years old. It took the planters some time to find trees that could thrive here and in the end there was a specific kind of pine tree that seemed to work well.

Here are some pictures of our forests!

The wind can make trees that are exposed to it move in strange directions.

The beginning of a path I walk on a lot on my hikes.

Ah, the shape of trees against the sky!

Which way to go?

This is a big pond on the edge of the forest close to my house.

The trees may be relatively young, but they are pretty tall anyway.

One of the wider pathways through the forest.

What I like about our forest areas is the many many paths that have been made in them, so even if the amount of land covered isn't all that huge you can still feel like getting lost in them and even after eight years of living here a new path can still surprise me.

Tomorrow we will move on to the next and last part of our tour which is all about some random goodies on my island!

Scenes from Vlieland - part three: all those dunes

Often where there's a sea and a beach there are dunes and Vlieland is no exception. In fact one may consider the entire island just a big collection of dunes thrown together. Here's some pretty pictures of the landscape.

Kooisplek - when there's been much rain the water forms pools like this.

One of the many sandy pathways that lead to the beach

It's winter, all the bushes and trees are bare.

Except for the pines of course.

This is basically how the entire island looks when it's not cultivated.

Just endless rows of dunes with a bush here and there.

I love the dead trees in the middle of this picture.

When the water is frozen in winter, some people will skate here.

On one of my last posts Teri asked if I used some photo-editing program for these photo's. Nope. These are simply the effects that the app RetroCamera gives to them all by itself. You can pick different settings and than it's just point and shoot with no influence at all. The only editing I do is making the pictures smaller so they don't take up so much memory space and download faster.

Hope you enjoyed this segment of our tour! Tomorrow we will visit the woods!

Scenes from Vlieland - part two: when it storms

The past few years we had some real winters here, which is quite rare as the island has a more temperate climate than the main land because of the ocean's influence, but this year it seems that winter is passing us by and is being replaced by a very long autumn. Okay, the trees are bare and it's a little colder, but that's about it. And...we get many many storms.

Of course in a place like this it's always windy, but the real storms like the past week with forces up to 11 and even 12 beaufort winds can really keep you awake at night and...they give spectacular roaring seas and high waters. Last week we had two big storms in a row and I got a chance to take some pictures of the extra high tides.

Because of the high water this car has to almost ride sideways against the dunes.

These poles usually stand on dry land.

These are part of a dam. I sometimes sit on them when the water's normal.

The water is covering a road here that runs next to the Wadden Sea.

Kids were enjoying biking through the water.

Sandbags were put in place as a precaution against the water.

And some people have these boards that slide into premade slots.

Here you can see the damage to the dunes when the storm calmed down.

The water was not extremely high, we've seen much worse, but the weather was rough enough to prevent the ferry from going to the main land. We were isolated for an entire day last week.

I don't know why, but there's something cosy about being seperated from the 'real world'. ;-) It's one of the charms of living in this place. Nothing can be taken for granted.

Scenes from Vlieland - part one: the sea

As promised, starting today, this week I will show you some images from my island that I took during my vacation. It will give you a bit of an idea of where I live and it will give me the opportunity to show off one of the most beautiful places in the world (I'm not biased, of course not!).

Today we will focus on the sea. Vlieland is an island that is situated north of the Netherlands in the Dutch Wadden Sea and as one may expect with any island it is surrounded by water.

The North Sea on the northeast side of the island

The Norh Sea on the north side of the island

The Wadden Sea as seen from the south side of the only town we have.

The North Sea beach on a quiet day at low tide

I love it when the beach is empty and wide!

The beach at the Wadden Sea, in the distance the entrance to the marina.

As you can see the beach was pretty wet when I took these pictures. Those are leftovers from several big storms and extra high tides we had the past weeks. Usually it's a bit more 'dry'. Tomorrow I will show some pictures of the results of high tides and storms.

I'm back with some seals and a cat

Oh my, how wonderful to be away from it all for a few weeks and how wonderful to be back again!

I missed you all, but I didn't really miss the computer all that much. I have not kept up on anybody's blogs, I have not kept up on any discussion groups and I have hardly checked things like facebook, so I'm behind on everything. Some people even started wondering where I was! ;-)

Here I am!

Well, blogsy people, I had a lovely vacation on my own island. Two weeks of sleeping late and living at my own rythm instead of the office life sure is good for a person. I only wish it could have lasted longer.

I spent my time mostly alone, apart from a visit from my dear friend Monk who came to stay at the island for five days, so of course we had to hang out together. I went on many hikes and walks, I spent some time in my studio, I read magazines and books (though not as many as I wanted), I journaled in ROD2 and I took hundreds of photographs! It seems that the vacation was a perfect time for me to try out my retro camera app on the smart phone. Fun fun fun!

And the occasions were plenty for taking pictures. There were many storms and high waters to admire. The landscape changed every day and the ocean was wild and loud one day and calm and content the next. Sometimes the beach seemed endless and sometimes the beach seemed to have completely disappeared! I really got to appreciate the place I live in all over again just by paying attention to the scenery and walking for hours taking it all in.

I think I will get slowly back into the groove of blogging by showing you some pictures I took during my vacation in the coming week. Just think of me as that annoying person that wants to show you all of their holiday slides, whether you're interested or not. ;-) It will give me a chance to show off this beautiful place I live in while gradually getting back into my daily routines. So bear with me, okay?

I'll start with something extraordinary, namely seals! Okay, seals aren't really extraordinary in this region, but they do not actually reside on the island but on a bank of sand several miles away from it. When the weather is really bad and there are young sometimes one of them will get swept away by the waves and get stranded on the island with its mother until the young is strong enough to swim back home. But this winter an entire group of seals decided to make the local beach their home and it was a wonderful sight! About ten of them have taken up temporary residence here and it was a wonderful opportunity to take some photographs.

There were three of these cute little babies. Don't be fooled by the cuteness of seals though. They have sharp teeth and a horrible temper, so it's important not to get too close, especially to a big one like the first picture (this one was huge!). I know he (she?) looks like he's smiling friendly, but he was keeping close watch of everybody who came by, ready to strike if necessary. Because they were all lying too far apart I couldn't really take a picture of the whole group, but it sure was a wonderful sight!

Now for another cutie. My new cat Peer and I have been getting better acquainted the past few weeks. He's a character allright. He is so fond of food he looses all manners and I'm slowly convincing him that in his new home this is not appreciated. But he also is so sweet and affectionate that a few minutes later everything is forgiven. He likes to be around me and keeps a close eye on me, which makes me feel very important and special, right until another person comes to visit and he showers them with the same attention. Peer is not a choosy cat. ;-)

But still, he seems pretty content to me living in my house, what do you think?

I'll share some more photographs of the island the coming week and of course I'll also show some of the artsy stuff I've done and pages from my journal. ROD2 is progressing nicely and I have quite a few pages to show. All in it's own good time though.

I hope all of you had a wonderful holiday season and I'm hoping we will join each other for another artsy year together! May it be a productive one!