Come, what May?

The merry month of May, it is. Or is it? I’ve enjoyed playing with words for this post title more than the the month itself. I usually love May as it’s when the weather warms up and we can spend more time outside, doing gardening, painting and boat work. Well, we’ve had one warm day so far, and that was followed by a humdinger of a thunderstorm, but I have to say that these first twelve days of the month have just been plain cold.
Luckily, the trees and flowers don’t seem to shrivel up the way I do, although I have a feeling the full leaf effect of the spring is a bit meagre this year. I took the photos below on a recent bike ride near the Hennie H’s harbour, along the sea canal that I love, and I think you’ll agree the trees could be doing better.

The buttercups, on the other hand, are gorgeous this year, and since we had the tree in the garden trimmed (or rather amputated), I’ve just let all the wild flowers do their thing and I’m not weeding at all. It’s so liberating, I must say. My excuse is that it’s for the bees, but I’m rather enjoying that sense of  release from worrying about the meadow taking over. The only things I’m pulling up are the nettles, which would just swamp everything else, given the chance.

 Meanwhile, Koos has been busy with the engine installation on the HH, and he’s nearly ready to call the expert to check things over before we turn the key and get it all going. It’s getting ‘spannend’ as the Dutch call the feeling, which is not so much exciting as… well … exciting with a dash of tension. He’s done an amazing job yet again and I cannot even claim to have held the spanners because I’ve been busy working most of the time he’s been beavering away.  

Anyway, having written and published my book about our last travels, it’s time we got going again to give me more fuel for my writing hobby. I have no idea where or how far we can go at the moment, but we’ll definitely be going somewhere. 

As for the situation here, our curfew is over, and the cafés are open again to customers, but only outside. However, they still have to close at 6 p.m. so our evenings in the Oude Haven remain peaceful (there are some blessings). Here are a few photos taken from my Vereeniging of the busy terraces last weekend.

Wishing you a good week and weekend allemaal. And hopefully the next post will speak of warmer, brighter climes.