windmill – Kathleen Jowitt

Windpump, main structure of dark wood planks, white sails, against a blue sky

Windpump at Wicken Fen. I am not just trying to indicate that 2024 was the year we got National Trust membership, though this is true.

At one point I got very interested in windmills (this is not one) and fell down several Wikipedia rabbit-holes learning about Dutch windmill code and so on (this appears to be broadcasting something between ‘good news’ and ‘not open for business’).

But the real reason for choosing this photo is the sense of space I encountered at Wicken Fen, which feels emblematic of this year’s emotional shift. Big skies and quietness. This year I’ve begun to make more sense of the world in which I live, I’ve been deliberate in spending more time outside, and (most of the time) there’s been more space and it’s easier to breathe.

China windmill, white with blue sails and details, hanging by a blue ribbon from a brass knob

Finishing off the vaguely Dutch theme of the last few days with an actual windmill from Amsterdam. Amsterdam was a day trip: we were staying in Leiden and it was our first foreign holiday together since our honeymoon. (Really? Six years? But then there really wasn’t much money to spare for most of them.)

Most of our recent foreign holidays have been to the Low Countries. There’s a good reason for that: we only started gathering some disposable income once we’d moved to Cambridgeshire, because that was where one of the jobs was. Add to that my reluctance to fly (it’s not that I’m never flying again, but I’m going to need a very good reason indeed), a shared interest in cycling, and the proximity of the Harwich ferry and the Eurostar, and it becomes obvious that we’d visit Leiden, then Ghent, then Lille.

(Solo trips are another matter. More on that tomorrow. And we are still holding out for that rail tour alongside the Rhine.)

I wasn’t massively keen on Amsterdam. My experience throughout my travels (again, more on that tomorrow, probably) has been that I prefer the smaller cities. But I did like the Netherlands more generally, and I’d like to go back sometime when All This is under control. In the meantime, I’m exploring my own flat land.