Egmond aan Zee: The Cheese Market - Jun 2010
Since June H is in early retirement, 32 years was a long enough stint, we have now the opportunity to take breaks outside the school holidays! This is quite weird being in an off season time slot! It should be cheaper but with inflation being what it is at the moment I must say I haven’t noticed any difference.
Last autumn I started flying kites with a camera. H says, I have too many hobbies, she’s right, with the little time I have, if I pluck up enough courage to start anything I invariably have to drop tools after what seems like a moment, but according to H, I’ve been at it eight hours non-stop and will you please come to bed as it’s two in the morning and I have school tomorrow and need to be up at 5:45...
I have always been one for night work, which means I get up rather late and toddle off to work about nine o'clock so as to miss the main morning traffic battling its way around Cologne on the ring autobahn. Battling is probably not the right word here as the traffic is hardly moving. With leaving “late” I can nock off about 20 minutes behind the wheel. I of course work late for the same reason for the homeward journey. Also it’s because most of the staff have left and I can get down to some tricky programming / conception / planning without interruptions pleasant as they usually are.
Due to the dropping of tools I have a cellar littered with bits and pieces of various projects in different stages of ‘finishness’ and when I rarely do enter the workroom I invariably look around for a while, pick something up, gaze at it, brush off the collected dust, place it at another location and finally leave despondent!
Rather frustrating in the long run especially when I come back again looking for said object and of course its not where you expect to find it, hence I leave a second time even more downcast than before!.
So back to the coast...
After four days, the weather was still wet and rather cold, winds in all directions and not very strong. The forecast implied that it would get better at the weekend so we decided to stay on a further two days. I was hoping to get the big kites up this time, it was slightly frustrating, but I was not going to push it.. I did that last time and fell flat on my back on the 1st. day, laying me up for the week (see ‘KAPing and casualty’). We will see.
Back again and it’s Friday and as the weather had not improved we decided to take a trip to Alkmaar to see the cheese market. We used the local bus as it was door to door and only eight km from the hotel. The market has taken place every Friday morning (April to Sept.) on the Waagplein since 1622. H had seen it once before on a school trip, I didn’t think it could be all that much of a deal, I mean it’s only a cheese market! But I was happily surprised in that it’s quite a spectacle.
The chesse's usually are laid out on the square before the weighting house (see pictures – it was raining so most are covered up). The classical cheese shape round is with a flat top and bottom. In days of olde the dairy farmers could not afford to have transport to the market, and therefore they 'rolled' them, hence the shape. Going by the roads in those times I can’t imagine what “shape” they arrived in and what was gathered on the way. Moss & stones.
The cheese carriers belong to the 'kassdragesgilde' – which you’ve probably guessed is the cheese carrier’s guild. They have to move the cheeses to the weighting house, believe it or not to be ‘weighed’.
Then they go under the hammer to be sold. Literally would be too messy.
Next they are carried to the buyer’s wagons/lorries to be transported away. What’s amazing is that due to the large number of cheeses to be processed they actually have to run with them back and forth otherwise there is a cheese traffic jam! The “cheese runners” have to be fit; each cheese weights over 10 kg, all together over 100kg between them, the art is to run so as to not wobble all over the place! Not as easy as it looks.
The rest of the day was a bit of shopping and a boat trip on the canals.
A cheesy wet day all round..
Weather improved at the weekend, but only enough wind to fly the small kites. There’s always a health problems when Holland is involved, last time my back. This time I was also under the weather with a vein infection in my left leg. It’s been plaguing me since the beginning of June. I’m supposed to walk a lot but it’s painful and I have a daily shot of heparin to keep the thrombosis away. I’m going to have to get them stripped in the autumn, which will be great fun I don’t think.
Last autumn I started flying kites with a camera. H says, I have too many hobbies, she’s right, with the little time I have, if I pluck up enough courage to start anything I invariably have to drop tools after what seems like a moment, but according to H, I’ve been at it eight hours non-stop and will you please come to bed as it’s two in the morning and I have school tomorrow and need to be up at 5:45...
I have always been one for night work, which means I get up rather late and toddle off to work about nine o'clock so as to miss the main morning traffic battling its way around Cologne on the ring autobahn. Battling is probably not the right word here as the traffic is hardly moving. With leaving “late” I can nock off about 20 minutes behind the wheel. I of course work late for the same reason for the homeward journey. Also it’s because most of the staff have left and I can get down to some tricky programming / conception / planning without interruptions pleasant as they usually are.
Due to the dropping of tools I have a cellar littered with bits and pieces of various projects in different stages of ‘finishness’ and when I rarely do enter the workroom I invariably look around for a while, pick something up, gaze at it, brush off the collected dust, place it at another location and finally leave despondent!
Rather frustrating in the long run especially when I come back again looking for said object and of course its not where you expect to find it, hence I leave a second time even more downcast than before!.
So back to the coast...
After four days, the weather was still wet and rather cold, winds in all directions and not very strong. The forecast implied that it would get better at the weekend so we decided to stay on a further two days. I was hoping to get the big kites up this time, it was slightly frustrating, but I was not going to push it.. I did that last time and fell flat on my back on the 1st. day, laying me up for the week (see ‘KAPing and casualty’). We will see.
Back again and it’s Friday and as the weather had not improved we decided to take a trip to Alkmaar to see the cheese market. We used the local bus as it was door to door and only eight km from the hotel. The market has taken place every Friday morning (April to Sept.) on the Waagplein since 1622. H had seen it once before on a school trip, I didn’t think it could be all that much of a deal, I mean it’s only a cheese market! But I was happily surprised in that it’s quite a spectacle.
The chesse's usually are laid out on the square before the weighting house (see pictures – it was raining so most are covered up). The classical cheese shape round is with a flat top and bottom. In days of olde the dairy farmers could not afford to have transport to the market, and therefore they 'rolled' them, hence the shape. Going by the roads in those times I can’t imagine what “shape” they arrived in and what was gathered on the way. Moss & stones.
The cheese carriers belong to the 'kassdragesgilde' – which you’ve probably guessed is the cheese carrier’s guild. They have to move the cheeses to the weighting house, believe it or not to be ‘weighed’.
Then they go under the hammer to be sold. Literally would be too messy.
Next they are carried to the buyer’s wagons/lorries to be transported away. What’s amazing is that due to the large number of cheeses to be processed they actually have to run with them back and forth otherwise there is a cheese traffic jam! The “cheese runners” have to be fit; each cheese weights over 10 kg, all together over 100kg between them, the art is to run so as to not wobble all over the place! Not as easy as it looks.
The rest of the day was a bit of shopping and a boat trip on the canals.
A cheesy wet day all round..
Weather improved at the weekend, but only enough wind to fly the small kites. There’s always a health problems when Holland is involved, last time my back. This time I was also under the weather with a vein infection in my left leg. It’s been plaguing me since the beginning of June. I’m supposed to walk a lot but it’s painful and I have a daily shot of heparin to keep the thrombosis away. I’m going to have to get them stripped in the autumn, which will be great fun I don’t think.
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