After his success with bike riding yesterday, Luke was very keen to hop on a bike this morning. We found a children's bike in the shed and then some tools and Karl sorted out the seat to Luke's height and pumped up the very flat tyres and we were off!
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| Luke hanging around! |
We had a number of "normal" things to do such as go to the post office, find a pharmacy, buy a protractor and also buy some groceries. All of these accomplished in our little town of Ouderkerk aan de Amstel, and then the rain met us as we were about to cycle home. We donned our ponchos and then noticed Luke's front tyre was very flat again, so it was probably already punctured before we even started. Annika to the rescue! She cycled home and got Karl to drive back in the car to collect Luke and bike and I continued back to the house.
School was slow to start. Annika is already working through next term and Tim is still ploughing through the mountains of work required for To Kill a Mockingbird. This is when distance education is difficult because he doesn't have the benefit of class discussion to thrash around ideas. As for Luke, he has been allocated books at a higher level but is resistant to the change. In a class setting, the peer pressure to keep moving forward is helpful but once again, we don't have this with distance education.
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| The Dockworkers' Memorial |
Desperate for an afternoon cycle we noticed the rain was setting in again and although the thought of getting saturated again wasn't too appealing, the lure of a ride was just too tempting. We had to buy a tyre repair kit and then Tim, Karl and I cycled into the centre of Amsterdam to see the Dockworkers' Memorial, commemorating the Strike of February 1941 when there was a general strike organised against the anti Jewish measures being introduced to the Netherlands. The statue is situated behind the Portuguese Synagogue and in front of the Jewish History Museum in the Jewish area of Amsterdam. Although the strike was unsuccessful it was the first direct action taken by non-Jews against the antisemitic measures in Nazi occupied Europe. From June 1940, Jews were removed from public positions including universities. It is sobering to think that right where we stood, there were people being persecuted.
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| Canals in the rain! |
As we stood in the rain, we pondered lots of things but on a lighter hearted note did wonder if the Dutch have many names for rain, like Inuits have many names for snow: morning rain, evening rain, late afternoon rain, dry rain (when the drops are far apart and you don't really get wet!), wet rain, hot rain and cold rain, etc! Today, it was wet, cold, late afternoon rain and peeling off my soaked trousers was a relief when we arrived home!
Now as I write, the sky is clear and the river still and the joggers and rowers are out in force and there is no evidence of the downpour! That's Holland for you!
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