My favourite box of tricks: Micrografx Picture Publisher 10. There are some nices options in there, but not too much. I can handle it.

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The Flowtops are at a place where lots of things are shifting.

For one, we are in the midst of tidying up the house to finally put it on the market. We do not expect a quick sale and have no idea where we will end up next. We're flexible in that we don't care where we live, as long as it is near a city with a train station and decent schooling (preferably a Waldorf school). Our notion of our new home is slowly shifting. Given our limited budget, we'll probably end up in a small dilapidated cottage with a big garden, where there is plenty of room to build a studio and a workshop. It'll be in the vicinity of Leeuwarden, Groningen or Assen, we think. And we'll need to do a lot of downsizing.

Our creative flow is shifting as well. I've done a few art pieces with Top3 and Top4 (the scary skeleton above is adapted from an earlier drawing by Top3), and I really like that type of work, so I think I will explore co-creation further. They both have wonderful imagination and an eye for detail.

There's always the comfort of comedians keeping you company.

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Corner Views of the world.

School holidays are difficult when the sun isn't shining, pops and moms have work to do and can't take you out, the village is emptied of children to play with and so on...

Top3 and Top4 have been forced to play together a lot, and though they succeeded most of the time, they were a handful to handle.

(Top1 and I are now looking at the six week school holidays starting in July - wondering what we'll do to keep ourselves afloat whilst Top3 and Top4 are hopping about the house.)

Below are just two of their myriad projects this past week. I envy them big time. I have a myriad projects in my mind as well - but no time to spare!

Top4 made a design for her white hand-me-down dress

Top3 painted some more Warhammer figures

Sometimes, I get petty-minded. I know I should rise above the medical profession and the ridiculous health system we have here in the Netherlands, with too many chiefs and not near enough Indians running the place, and just be glad we made it thus far, but hey, enlightened as I am, I am still human and primitive emotions sometimes get the better of me.

According to our previous GP, we are "playing around with medicine". (We strictly adhere to the ILADS guidelines for treating Lyme, so it is not as if Top1 is gulping down antibiotics by the gallon.) His symptoms are still improving, albeit slowly. We are thinking about gradually cutting down on the medicine, even though that adds to uncertainties we are already facing with work, housing and money. The specialist we are consulting for the treatment resides in Amsterdam, so we will probably make an appointment with him to discuss the next step soon.

Anyway, this is me cocking my snoot at the medical profession. Symptoms improving, Top1 is alive and kicking. "Old age" my ass. (Pardon the language. Still in petty-minded state.)

What counts is not what IS on our walls, but what IS NOT on our walls. (The answer: Stuff.)

Please visit Francesca at FuoriBorgo for more
Corner Views of the world.

This is at scout camp, where Top3 takes a moment to watch the hydraulic crane arm of the Fire Department going up 35 metres, with Top1 and Top4 in the safety cage.

All in all, he had a good time, though he did complain about lack of sleep because the others wouldn't stop talking at night. And he couldn't read a comic book at breakfast or lunch. (Also, he missed his Gogos and his stuffed animals. But mum's the word. Apparently, it is not cool to mention them to other 8 year-olds.)

Today I found these rusty imprints of old keys in a cupboard. Whatever happened to them? Their shadows look so hostile.

Did they have a lovers tiff? Argue about who was better at locking doors?

(Now, I am hesitant to open another cupboard. Who knows what chilling evidence I'll find in there ;-)

Warhammer signs

Bamboo traveling south

Gnome overgrown

Sorry, again no CV. I wish I could say that was because I am finally back in my studio, but alas... I've been working real hard at Top1s webshops (there'll be a Dutch webshop and an Etsy webshop for international customers).

In the mean time, Top1 is busy with his new line of designs. He'll be presenting his pins and brooches and bracelets and so forth at a small fantasy fair this weekend. In a couple of weeks time, there will be another fair. At the end of July, we will both be present at a regional art fair lasting a couple of days (Must have some new artwork ready by then. Can't drag the same old lot of paintings along.) Oh, and in November he'll probably attend a bigger art fair a bit further away.

These are exciting times. Never thought I'd live to see the day that I'd actually get by on just adrenaline and six hours sleep a night...

Top4 has been hard at work in Top1s workshop. He has shown her how to use the hot glue gun, and she surprised us with this very artistic outcome. Look at all those colored glue threads!

Top1 only helped her by holding some of the pieces in place whilst she glued them. She composed, cut, painted and glued the whole thing by herself.

Top4 may be a pain in the * sometimes, but boy can she craft! I really love her imagination. She will be taking her masterpiece to kindergarten this afternoon, to show her teacher (a crafter herself).

PS I am planning on overhauling this blog, so that I can put up bigger pictures of the craftmanship. First I have to finish Top1s webshop (soon, soon)...

We spent a few days in Vierhouten, at a holiday resort which used to be the camping ground for the Dutch Socialist Youth Center (Arbeiders Jeugd Centrale, AJC). This is where Top1s parents met, and so for her 75th birthday, his mother rounded up the family for a trip down memory lane.

The resort is right smack in the middle of the heath. Some of the buildings at the resort have been declared historic monuments.

When I came back from my lonesome hike across the quiet Elspeet Heath, I was taken aback by the noise in the resort. It must have been totally different in those happy days my MIL remembers. No cars parked all over the place, no animation team with hefty loud speakers, no fields filled to the brim with caravans, each with their own television set, their own radio, etcetera. Just a lot of tents, inhabited by enthusiastic youths gathering for singing a cappella and in canon, play-acting, folk dancing and sharing socialist principles. Camp fires at night, more songs, cameraderie.

I sometimes wonder what is left of the ideals they fought for. These people had survived World War II. They had everything to look forward to. The only way was up.

What is left for us, for our children? Is it just the quiet Elspeet Heath, or is there something else? Are we still fighting, or have we given up?

I walked barefoot in the sand, thinking about the socialists and how their ideas seem to have been misplaced in modern society. I listened to the cuckoos and reveled in the absence of man-made sounds.

I have no answers. Still, it was a glorious day.

Making it to the scouts...

PS Taking a few days off. We'll be back next week.