Tiny green bird says *Hi*: Beyond sleep

I do not read as much as I use to. For my former job I travelled two hours at one day by train, so I devoured books. Now I only have to travel 20 minutes. At the moment I carry the book 'Nooit meer slapen' (Beyond sleep) by the Dutch writer Willem Frederik Hermans around. This man is one of 'The Big Three', the three most important Dutch writers after WWII (along with Harry Mulisch and Gerard Reve). Maybe you know the book 'The discovery of heaven' by mr. Mulisch. I would like to write a book...wake up in the morning, walk the dog, drink some coffee and then retreat to the study. A room with lots of books and sun light coming in trough the high windows, while the wind is playing with the curtains.

These are a few other Dutch writers which I like a lot: Rascha Peper, Ronald Giphart, Arnon Grunberg and Joost Zwagerman. I believe some of their books also appeared in the English language.

Yesterday evening I went to the city, looking for some vintage tins to put in stuff like pasta, flower, sugar etc. But it was hard to find. The recycle store placed some nice cans in the window, but that stuff was not for sale. Very frustrating! They did have two Chinese tea cups and two oriental looking dishes though :)

And after that I discoverd a very very very nice store: tiger.dk. It is a Danish concept, with all kinds of interesting, funny and original stuff. The have office supplies, kitchenware, music and goodies. Very pleased with my new wallet.

My mailbox was quite empty this week. But I did receive a nice black and white card from Danik the Explorer, from London.

And I have been a good penpal, with two outgoing letters and a few postcards.

To Natalja, Estonia

To Lidia, Poland

To Irma, Lithuania

To Tamara, Ukraine

To the lovely lady Sally, with an envelop with a linoleum print.

To Shona, with two nice cards of Paris and an envelop made from an Escher artwork.

Escher was a Dutch graphic artist. He made some really cool artworks, with optical illusions. He used real graphic techniques like lithography and woodcutting. There actually is an Escher museum in The Hague if you want to see the artworks for real.