quote of the week

Photo D. Blom
 

If you listen,
Not to pages or preachers
But to the smallest flower
Growing from the crack
In your heart,
You will hear a great song
Moving across a wide ocean
Whose water is the music
Connecting all the islands
Of the universe together,
And touching all
You will feel it
Touching you
Around you
Embracing you
With light

It is in that light
that everything lives
and will always be alive.
John Squadra

Mount Hutt and lake Coleridge

My hubby asked me what I wanted for my birthday and I said a day out. He said:"tell me where you want to go". I said: " I never went to lake Coleridge. let's explore that." We decided to go to Rakaia, drive to Metven and from there back through Rakaia Gorge and to Lake Coleridge. We passed Mt Hut and hubby said:"why don't we drive up there." We went up 14km of gravel road and on the top it was stunning. Bonus: After weeks and weeks of rain we had an amazing sunny day.

View from Mt Hutt

Mount Hutt Ski field is the largest in canterbury Do you see that little kid. He came racing down.

Lot's of skies. Non for us. I've got two left feet. 

I liked these poles. They hold back the snow I guess

So loved the views

Rakaia river

pretty pretty pretty 

Rakaia Gorge

Rakaia Gorge The water was sparkling

We drove 40 km up and down along the wrong gravel road to find lake Coleridge, but we came along nice spots

Yippee we found it in the end; Lake Coleridge. The love of my life threw rocks of relieve.

An inspirational video

A beautiful inspirational video which reminds us that we are all one. Nature is one of our greatest gifts. It gives us oxygen, resources, beauty etc. We are depended on it, but we are taking to much from it over and over and over again, without any respect, without thinking about the future. We are abusing our greatest treasure. Nature gives but as we have seen here during the earthquake it also takes. We can't temper it, we can't control it so just treat it with the greatest respect. We don't need to take all from nature. We need food, we need water, we need each other.

We could live in harmony. Are there still any places where there is still that understanding? Someone I know travelled the world and he met people who didn't owe anything and lived very basically. What he was most surprised about was that these people actually laughed more often in a day then anybody he knew in his own rich country had done in years. These people were not distracted by gathering more and more. They just lived and nature gave them what they needed. This was a long time ago. Things might have changed as more and more of nature's abundance is taken away and is being destroyed.

We lost touch with each other and nature and we are not doing our children a favour. So let's think about it and let us regain our awe for mother nature, let's stop taking from her and she will nurture us and will spoil us with her beauty.

Castle Heeswijk Dinther

Good friends who have lived in Christchurch in the past, took us to castle Heeswijk Dinther. Holland has many castles. They were build in the early middle ages as protection against enemies. Castle Heeswijk Dinther started off as a motte in 1080. The castle was built on top of it.  In the 15th century gunpowder was used to attack the castles and it was no longer safe. Many castles as well as Heeswijck Dinther fell into decay. People retreated behind the city walls of 's-Hertogenbosch for safety. A massive reconstruction started when the André Baron van den Bogaerde van Terbrugge bought the castle in 1835 and he and his sons started a huge art collection. The castle is now a museum.

A beautiful castle surrounded by a moat and complete with draw bridge.

The castle was a good protection but difficult to get out to get food when it was attacked.

and this side is pretty as well

You can now drink coffee in front of the former coach house

There are still many art pieces left in the castle but many disappeared
in the past because of hereditary right.

 

This is the part were the servants lived. There were many bell in here which were connected to the rooms. When someone was hungry they just rang the bell.

Quote of the week

 

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”
 -Theodore Roosevelt

Demolition Radio Network House

Photo The Press, Don Scottt

Spectacular demolition of the Radio Network House in Christchurch City

This morning at 8pm it took 60 kilograms of explosives for the demolition of the Radio network House, a 14 story building in Christchurch. My husband woke up from a bomb like sound but I slept through it. Another building gone.

On Trade Me, an online auction side, you could bid for the chance to push the button and implode the building. A man from Christchurch won the bid with $26,000.00. This amount will go to the restoration of  the Isaac Theatre Royal. The man didn't press the button himself  but gave the chance to 6 year old Jayden, who has cancer. His push on the button resulted in the building coming down nicely without damaging any nearby buildings.

Open air museum Orientalis

We went with a friend to Orientalis in Heilig landstichting, as our friend lives in Groesbeek not far from it. It is a stunning open air museum, very close to Nijmegen.
Orientalis was founded in 1911 when it was called the holy land foundation. It focuses on the background and traditions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam and in the future they are going to add a Buddhist temple, a Hindu village and a spiritual path.
It is beautifully set in a forest and you can spend hours here; having a look in the museum near the entrance, walking through the villages, streets and having an oriental lunch and tea at the roman tavern.

Jewish village Beth Judah It is inspired by the village El Hosson in Jordon

There is a a synagogue and a separate eastern farm.

A caravanserai. This was a resting place and a safe place for traveling merchants in the past in West and central Asia, The Middle East, North Africa and the Balkans.

Arab village of Bait al-Islam The beautiful architecture is based on the trading town of Mirbat in Oman 

The windows are small to keep the sun outside

Roman street. The first Christians were the poor and the slaves. Christianity was forbidden till 313 AD. It was an entertainment to feed Christians to the lions in Ancient Rome. In Orientalis you can find inside the houses a hidden church were the Christians met in secret.

 

A volunteer in the Roman Street. The volunteers provide you with a wealth of information.

In the Roman street is also a space of Mithra. Mithra was a pagan religion of the Indo-Iranian Sun-god Mithra. The pagan religion spread rapidly over the Roman empire in ancient Rome.

A pottery in Via Orientalis

A desert Bedouin camp. Bedouin are Nomadic people who speak Arabic and live in the Middle Eastern deserts, especially in Arabia, Syria, Jordan and Iraq. The number of Bedouin is decreasing.
Marguerite van Geldermalsen is a New Zealander who married a Bedouin from Petra in Jordon. Her last name gives away that she must be from Dutch descendants. She lived with her husband in a 2000 year old cave, converted to Islam and she learned Arabic. She wrote a book Married to a Bedouin

The moment by Margaret Atwood

 

THE MOMENT

By Margaret Atwood

The moment when, after many years

of hard work and a long voyage

you stand in the centre of your room,

house, half-acre, square mile, island, country,

knowing at last how you got there,

and say, I own this,

is the same moment when the trees unloose

their soft arms from around you,

the birds take back their language,

the cliffs fissure and collapse,

the air moves back from you like a wave

and you can't breathe.

No, they whisper. You own nothing.

You were a visitor, time after time

climbing the hill, planting the flag, proclaiming.

We never belonged to you.

You never found us.

It was always the other way round.