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Category Archives: History

Quirky Bits in Amsterdam

There were shops all over Amsterdam selling plastic ducks. After passing several , I went in to one to ask ‘Why?” It seems they are simply a retail opportunity to attract tourists!

One of the Duck shops

Information re ducks

I loved the decoration outside a shop selling children’s clothes, the decoration comprising of painted bicycle parts and enormous knitted strawberries!

On the corner of the street near our hotel, Roemers Hotel, was a house beautifully decorated with blue and white tiles near the top of the building. Lower down was a plaque to Maria Tesselschade Roemers Visscher. She is described by her friends mentioned below as “attractive, musically talented, and a skilled translator and commentator from French and Italian.They also praised her skill at singing, painting, carving, glass engraving and tapestry work.” From Wikipedia.

Here’s a translation for you:

If Tesselschade is unfamiliar to you, then you may know
That she was a friend of Roemer Visscher,

That she sat in the circle of singers
And with her stylus wrote wittily on the glass
And if you wish to find more merit and gifts
Speak to Huygens, Hooft and Vondel, her friends

PIETER HUISINGA BAKKER
Maria Tesselschade Roemers Visscher 1594 – 1649 poet

2 Comments

Posted by mybeautfulthings on May 21, 2026 in art, craft, History, knitting, Netherlands, poetry, Postaday 2026, travel

Street Art, Sculptures and Statues

20 May

We came across lots of interesting structures around Amsterdam.

Against the Tide by Rini Hurkmans is a memorial sculpture honouring murdered Dutch journalist Peter R. de Vries who was shot on July 6, 2021, and died on July 15, 2021.

It’s worth reading this, if a bit of a struggle.

In the gardens of Begijnhof

One of the lizards in a grassy patch by the street

Loved the goblin

Loved these two on the roof of a club

In silhouette

Gerardus Vossius and Caspar Barlaeus were pioneering Dutch scholars and the founding fathers of the University of Amsterdam. In 1632, they opened the Athenaeum Illustre, a city-sponsored academy that challenged Leiden’s academic monopoly and eventually evolved into the modern university I found this in a hidded garden off the book alley I told you about a couple of days ago.

We went to Amsterdam with our friends A&K and just had to find A’s Great Grandfather, Ferdinand Domela Nieuwenhuis, 31 December 1846 – 18 November 1919) who was a Dutch socialist politician and later a social anarchist and anti-militarist. Just learned that we share a birthday!

A translation of the plaque: Ferdinand Domela Nieuwenhuis sculpture represents the rise of the labor movement in the 19th century. Prometheus is depicted in the relief. This Greek hero stole fire from heaven and gave it to mankind. In earlier designs, Polet had placed the Greek myth at the center, with a subordinate position for Domela. Only in a third design did Polet allow himself to be guided by the form of a statue on a pedestal. In his time, Polet was an important exponent of Expressionism within Dutch sculpture. Artist Johan Polet 1931

4 Comments

Posted by mybeautfulthings on May 20, 2026 in Amsterdam, art, family history, Netherlands, Postaday 2026, travel

Tags: Against the Tide, Caspar Barlaeus, Ferdinand Domela Nieuwenhuis, Gerardus Vossius, Rini Hurkmans

Soup, Stamppot and A Talk

18 May

We had some delicious courgette soup in the sunshine before going into the very interesting H’Art Museum in Amsterdam.

That evening, wanting to eat Dutch food, I had Boerenkool Stamppot and being a big fan of mash and gravy, absolutely loved this meal.

Tonight we have been to the Hall for Cornwall for a talk I really wasn’t interested in, A Gun Through Time by the historian David Olusoga. However, the subject was made quite fascinating by him concentrating on the social history rather than the military history of guns.

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Posted by mybeautfulthings on May 18, 2026 in Amsterdam, Food, Hall for Cornwall, History, Netherlands, Postaday 2026, travel

Tags: David Olusoga, Kop van Jut

Two Stations, Saying Goodbye and Garden

14 May

I hope the Flowers in May, posted for your delectation, have pleased you. I scheduled them all, taken just before we went away for a long needed break – a train journey to Amsterdam with friends. Over the next week or two I’ll share photos from then.

St Pancras station where we caught the Eurostar

Amsterdam Centraal

While we were away on our long planned train trip to Amsterdam, the funeral of our Dear friend and breakfast companion, J, took place. As we very sadly couldn’t be there to say goodbye and to sing for him with my choir, my lovely choir leader offered to take something precious of mine so that a part of me would be there.
I chose a small ribbon in purple, white and green that Daughter no 3 gave me some time ago. J appreciated my suffragette history and so it seemed an appropriate token to represent me last week.

Grown well in our absence

4 Comments

Posted by mybeautfulthings on May 14, 2026 in architecture, environment, friendship, nature, Netherlands, Postaday 2026, Suffragettes, travel

Tags: Amsterdam

Family History, Daisy Hat, A Poem and A Song

07 Apr

On this day in 1909, my Great Grandmother, Mary Elizabeth Wiseman, Suffragette, aged 53, was arrested in London having thrown stones to break windows. Subsequently she was imprisoned in Holloway, went on hunger strike, was force fed and was awarded the Suffragette Portcullis Brooch in recognition of her courage.

I bought a new sun hat!

For some reason the following words came into my mind today and then I remembered that Pete Seeger gave the words some music.

from Ecclesiastes

3 Comments

Posted by mybeautfulthings on April 7, 2026 in family, music, poetry, Postaday 2026, singing, Suffragettes, Uncategorized

Tags: Judy Collins, Pete Seeger, Turn Turn Turn

Porcelain, Dumbbells and A Word

26 Feb

I have two beautiful little porcelain boxes. They were given to my parents on their Ruby wedding anniversary by the man who was their Best Man and who became my Godfather, Maurice Oldfield. These little boxes became mine in due course and I love them.

In November last year I joined an online exercise class designed for women over 60 and I am loving it! Feeling stronger and fitter and far less arthritic pain. We have just graduated from using cans of beans as weights to little dumbbells weighing twice as much and mine arrived in the post today!

We have rain again today, a soft mizzle and I turned to my beautiful book , Ninety-Nine Words for Rain and this one describes today’s drizzly stuff. I just wish I knew how to say these lovely words.

Allotment, Leeks and A Good Read

13 Feb

We’ve had lots of fun and lots of delicious food from our allotment over the years but the time has come to move on. We have four raised beds for veg in our garden and can get fresh veg from Community Roots so at the end of the month we will hand over the plot to a lovely and very enthusiastic young family.
This morning we dug up a lot of our leeks and have spent the day processing them all. At £1 each from the shops, they are a very valuable crop! We now have some pots of leeks in white sauce as a ‘ready’ veg, prepped leeks for the base of a risotto and four bottles of leek and potato soup – a very productive and pretty tiring day.

The current book from The ShelterBox Book Group is ‘Scattered’ by Aamna Modhin. This is a powerful and gripping story told by a journalist who visited Calais as she was reporting on the refugee crisis and here begins to come to terms with being a refugee herself. It is a wonderful mix of personal history and journalistic detail, all told in a very readable style. I really cared about Aamna and her family and I learned a great deal about the whole refugee situation which the media doesn’t really show. There’s an excellent glossary, notes section and bibliography. It seems a perfect choice for the ShelterBox book group and I’m looking forward to the Q&A with the author next week.

6 Comments

Posted by mybeautfulthings on February 13, 2026 in community, growing, History, Postaday 2026, Uncategorized

Tags: Aamna Modhin, Kakuma Refugee Camp, Somalia

Cornish Saints and Sinners and A Song

15 Jan

Another of Mum’s books that I have always loved is “Cornish Saints and Sinners” by J. Henry Harris, a quirky and entertaining look at the stories of places and people who feature in Cornwall’s history.

It amused me today on looking at it again after many years, that there’s a whole chapter dedicated to Dolly Pentreath about whom we sing at choir, a song written by Claire and Anna Maria Murphy.

You can listen to the song here, sung by Femmes de la Mer, Claire’s all female shanty group.

Kite, Candle Snuffer and Chocolates

09 Dec

We’ve been sorting out lots of the toys kept for LiveWires and have been deciding where they are all to go now everyone has grown out of them. The kite has been claimed by our son for his twins, LiveWires 5 and 6. It came to us many years ago from family in America and was much loved and well used. I even have the original instructions that came to us in about 1983, such an unusual personalised present that the kids all loved and which gave the whole family lots of fun.

Our old silver candle snuffer is being used every day when the advent candle has burned the day’s date away.

We have an advent calendar that gives us two little truffles each day – a calendar for couples!

P.S. The big storm that is battering Cornwall and much of the UK today has been named Bram. In Cornish, Bram means ‘fart’ which has amused many of us as we hear the howling winds.

5 Comments

Posted by mybeautfulthings on December 9, 2025 in Christmas, Cornwall, family, family history, Grandchildren, Happiness, Postaday2025, Uncategorized

Tags: The Natural High

A Lane, A Name and The Bench

21 Nov

After going to the garden centre to buy hyacinth bulbs, we came home the long way round, going down the very narrow lane, Sunny Corner, where my Mum and Dad used to live in Cusgarne.

We went past their house, still named for the many chimney pots they had collected and which Mum used as planters. We have some now as do two of our daughters.

The bench we put in place to remember both of my parents is just a little further on. It pleased me greatly to see rings on the armrests where people on their walks have rested with their flasks. I especially wanted wide arm-rests for that very purpose.