NL.17 -- While Away . . .

Noorderplantsoen is a longish park, at the edges of what were once the city walls of Groningen, in the north of the Netherlands.

In the late nineteenth century, fortifications, ramparts and moats became a happy maze of trees and paths, ponds and bridges. As if there'd be no more invaders.

Nest-building pairs of Eurasian Coots at waters’ edge are the first to steal the show. But only until other couples, further along in their cootish life-processes —already fussing over ridiculously red-headed young— come swimming along.

The best vision of all still awaits. In a meadow near the park’s centre, just to the side of a café in an old pavillion.

A pair of dogs are bouncing about, arguing amiably over a stick. As I try to paint the scene playing out before Heidi and me, it seems a kind of “Dog Eden.”

“Dog Eden.” Noorderplantsoen, Groningen, NL.

Tiny Zandvoort —not far from Amsterdam, even nearer to Haarlem— offers an entirely different (but not unrelated) little world apart.

A seaside town seemingly adrift from contemporary existence. Away from the screech of our screens, from the media's preaching and pandering, from life's next steps.

I'm in transition —mental and physical, from Europe to the Americas— and these places lend a hand.

As if summoned to smooth my cares, a man takes a seat on a bench across from where I sit and watch. In the shade, beneath an arched trellis in the centre of town, he whiles away the afternoon with a book.

* photographs and watercolours by Kenneth Mills

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