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Andrew Kay heads north for nine days in the Netherlands and finds a warm and exciting welcome

“When it’s spring again, I’ll bring again…“ Sorry, forgive me, but I am just back from my annual trip to the low countries. This year a week in Amsterdam and two days in Arnhem. Arnhem is rather pretty but the highlight was a trip to a Robbers & van den Hoogen’s wine cellars, where the delightful Bonnie took us on an excellent guided tour and showed us a lot of wine that I can only dream about drinking.

In Amsterdam my time was divided between two hotels. First up: the very smart and luxurious Amsterdam American, which was conveniently a five-minute stroll from most of the great museums and galleries. The hotel is of international standard and stylish, slick and efficient. The dining room, though, is of museum quality, a grand affair in the Art Nouveau style, a fin de siecle masterpiece, with a painted brick vaulted ceiling, beautiful glass and huge arched window overlooking the Leidseplein. Sitting there for a rather grand Dutch breakfast was an excellent experience.
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Dani admits to being petty but won’t go too far, unlike some people

I will be the first to admit that I can be very petty. But I am generally only petty with things that I feel are really unfair.

Being petty for the sake of being petty is a waste of time and energy. But all day long, all year round we all encounter one or two people who thrive on this. I don’t understand it. You may have family members, friends, colleagues or all of the above (as I think I do) who grab hold of something really small like, for instance, a molehill and then through the power of negative thought turn it into, let’s say, a mountain.
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Sandra Omo despairs of the models who give up their career too easily

Limitations, they are everywhere. In everything you do or try to do, there is always that ‘something’ trying to tell you, ‘you can’t do it’, or in a moral form, ‘you should not do it’. Often, limitations are so moral and so logical that we find an excuse to fall for it. I have met countless people who failed without even trying at that big dream they once had. Why? There were limitations everywhere. It seemed logical to pull out and do something less. Each time I meet a case like this, within me I am dying to ask these people: “If you could believe so strongly in the impossibilities, why didn’t you just believe in the possibility?”
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