Category: life in general

JFall

Today I visited JFall, a one day java conference organized annually by the Dutch Java Users Group. The conference was a good chance to catch up on the latest technologies (with a bias towards Adobe products, as they were the main sponsor of the event this year), and also meet up with some old colleagues of mine.

In the end I attended sessions on:

  • Webservices security (a necessary evil)
  • Adobe AIR (bringing flashy internet sites to the desktop, for example eBay Desktop)
  • New features in Java 6 & 7
  • JavaFX (a new scripting language for Java user interfaces)
  • Concurrency

The conference was for the most part well organized, with the exception of the bus service which was provided from the train station to the conference venue – 2 7-seaters which were hopelessly under capacity to carry everyone. Since there were no signs indicating where the buses could be found, it was a good thing that an all male group of computer programmers is hard to miss.

All in all, though, an enjoyable day which was both educational and social, and gave me a good opportunity to practice my Dutch. I’m looking forward to their next conference, held in April…. JSpring!

Gadgets and Widgets

In an effort to get a little fitter before my holiday in November, I have now signed up for the fitness club at work, and, even more unexpectedly, joined the running club. I must admit that I attended my first running session with quite some trepidation, not in the least because I am the only beginner in the group and my recollections of school athletics classes were not encouraging. Still, I have now survived three running sessions and I begin to feel that there is hope yet!

Ever one to require verification of my progress through measurement, I have also acquired a Nike Plus sensor (and, ahem, a beautiful shiny blue iPod Nano). I took them out this evening for my very first solo run, and here are the results.

On a more indoor note, I have recently received my marks for the latest Open University course, Molecules, Medicines and Drugs, (I passed!), and am now embarking on a new short course in Nutrition, as well as challenging myself to a longer course, Understanding Health Sciences, which will take 9 months to complete.

As you can see from the nutrition chart (from www.2000cal.com) , the “measure it” principle doesn’t only apply to running, and the Nutrition course has lead me to investigating websites which will log your food intake, and give you a nutritional summary. A nice feature of the course is that part of the assignment involves analysing your own diet (or that of a willing guinea pig… any volunteers?)

Analysis of over the last week already shows that my diet is low in Vitamin A (interesting, as Vitamin A is good, amongst other things, for night vision – something which I’ve always had problems with). Although walrus liver is apparently a good source of Vitamin A, I’ve decided to go for the more practical, not to mention palatable (I hope!) approach of drinking carrot juice (guess there’s some truth in the saying the carrots help you see in the dark, after all).

Links:

Of trains and harpsichords…

… you could say that two features defined this last weekend – singing and transport problems.

On Saturday, I sang in Amsterdam at the St Nicolaaskerk, with the Anglican Singers and a couple of my friends from the choir in The Hague. Travelling to Amsterdam is generally straight-forward – a single train ride from Delft, but even so, it’s not a place a visit very often. I decided, therefore to set off a little earlier than necessary and do a little shopping in preparation for my trip to Namibia. Unfortunately my plans were rather scuppered by rail-works on one route, and an accident on another. My simple train journey ended up taking nearly two hours, and involved 3 trains and a bus. Needless to say, I had to abandon the idea of my shopping trip.


Although a number of people turned up late for the rehearsal become of the transport difficulties, the service itself went very well. This was my first time singing at the St Nicolaaskerk, and it was a very enjoyable experience – both seeing the very impressive church, and meeting up again with my friends from the ECS.


(many choir members, especially those with music qualifications, have an academic hood for every occasion. I feel like I’m starting a similar trend with choir robes recently, having been seen in red, purple or blue, depending on the choir I’m singing with. Come to think of it, that’s a hood per robe!)

Music List, Choral Evensong, with Anglican Singers in Amsterdam:

  • Introit – Bless o Lord, us thy Servants (John Harper)
  • Preces and Responses – Jackson
  • Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis – Brewer in D
  • Anthem – Lord, thy Glory Fills the Skies (Darke)

Being the third of the month, Sunday was a busy day with the choir in The Hague, singing at both morning and evening services. It was also the Sunday before Prinsjesdag (the day on which the Queen addresses the Parliament in The Hague) which means that there is a practice procession from the palace to the parliament buildings. Last year I also fell foul of the procession, as my cycle route to the church takes me straight past the palace. Again, this year, the first thing I noticed was the whistle of a policeman, and the sudden appearance of a couple hundred horses, being ridden by men with swords! A real shame I didn’t have my camera handy, as the procession is quite impressive, including the mounted trumpeters, a marching band and a number of golden carriages. Pretty much everything and everybody, in fact, apart from the Queen herself.

But perhaps you’re asking, where does the harpsichord come into things? Well, to fit in with the music we were singing at evensong, Christina had brought her harpischord along (again, would have made a nice photo), and located it in the only space available – the middle of the choir stalls. So, not only road and rail blockages this weekend, but also “the wrong kind of harpsichord” in the middle of the choir stalls to add an extra dimension to the procession.

Music List, Choral Evensong, St John & St Philip, The Hague:

  • Preces and Responses – Davies
  • Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis – Daniel Purcell
  • Anthem – Thou Knowest Lord – Henry Purcell

I’d like to be able to report at this point that my travel annoyances of the weekend were over, but sadly, on the way home from church in the evening I braked too hard as I came flying down the bridge, and bust a brake cable on the bike… a week of tram riding follows…

It is delicious…

Jen’s trip flew by, but despite the short amount of time we had, we managed cover a fair bit of ground. As well as a visit to Maastricht (a little blighted by the Belgian beer of the night before), we also visisted Dekxels restaurant in The Hague to celebrate a friend’s 30th birthday. The food was quite inventive, including strange combination such as steak tartare with duck liver ice-cream. Sounds bizarre, but was actually very tasty, and the various combinations provided a good way to break the ice with the many people we hadn’t met before.

No get-together would be complete without a chance to eat sushi, which we managed to fit in at my local Japanese restaurant, a slightly strange place where every dish is accompanied by the words “it is delicious”.

Wednesday brought more homely fare – I came home from work for lunch and a friend joined us for lasagne, and an extremely competitive game of monopoly. Quite a change from my normal lunchtime routine – I felt like I was playing truant from school, and I can highly recommend the experience.

Taking Jen back to the airport, she was most anxious to have one last kroket (see “In which Jen discovers the kroket”), a wish that we were fortunately able to fulfil at Schiphol Airport. After all these years, Schiphol still manages to turn up a few surprises!

In which Jen discovers the kroket

So, I picked up Jen from the airport yesterday and brought her back to Delft. During our 20 minute change at Den Haag H.S., she decided to investigate the Dutch snack counter, and discovered that most Dutch of snacks – the kroket. I think it’s safe to say that she’s hooked… as soon as we polished off the first kroket, she ran back to the machine to pick up the next one.

Once we got back to Delft, we quickly (ish) rustled up a roast chicken and then headed off to Locus Publicus to meet my friends Fiona and Ivo, and introduce Jen to Belgian and Dutch Beer. Guided by Fiona, our resident expert, she sampled the Zatte van de IJ, Afligem Blond and the Popperings Hommel, accompanied by the traditional kaasplank – a selection of (primarily dutch) cheeses. We rounded the evening off nicely with a visit to Alef’s snackbar, for, yes you guessed it – another kroket!

Ballet in the Binnenhof

Unfortunately a rather a wet evening for an outdoor festival, but despite the weather a large number of people turned up for this evening’s ballet performance by the Gallili dance company, one of a number of performances over 3 nights in the Binnenhof in The Hague.


The evening got off to a rather late start, caused by a slow security procedure, which meant that unfortunately one item was removed from the program. As you can probably see from the photo, Fiona and I didn’t end up with particularly good seats, and after craning our necks through the first dance (and missing most of it), we managed to move and find better seats for the rest of the performance.

The dances were very varied, ranging from intense to amusing and acrobatic. Well, I can’t begin to describe them, but the photographs on the festival page (link above), perhaps can convey some idea.

Bowdon Choir at Durham Cathedral

My second choir trip this summer was to Durham Cathedral, with the choir of St Mary the Virgin, Bowdon – my English choir, whom I still visit when I’m back at home.

Durham is a city which I have passed through a couple times, including for university interviews, but never really spent much time in. The city itself is small and welcoming, and we were lucky to be staying at one of the colleges (St Chad’s), which is located directly behind the cathedral. After the steep uphill walk we had in Bristol, I really enjoyed the convenience of being able to just nip up to the cathedral, especially when loaded with robes and music.


It was great fun being back with my friends from the old choir, singing both old favourites from my 11 years in the choir, as well as exercising my sight-reading skills on the newer pieces. All in all, we were over 40 people on the weekend, which caused some logistical problems in choir stalls designed for 24 people.


The only frustration for me at Durham is that, unlike most British cathedrals, photography is not allowed. The cathedral is an incredibly awe-inspiring building, with huge great pillars, and my fingers were really itching to get my camera out! Fortunately, we were able to take photos in a couple of areas, including the cloisters and the chapter house, where we robed up and which featured in the Harry Potter films as the transfiguration classroom.

European Cathedral Singers in Bristol

August is traditionally “choir camp” month, as choirs are given the opportunity to fill in for the many cathedral choirs during the summer vacation.

I spent the last week with the European Cathedral Singers (ECS), singing the services at Bristol Cathedral from Monday to Friday, and at the parish church of St Mary Redcliffe on the weekend. This is the only the second trip I’ve made with the ECS, and the first time I’ve joined for the full week.

As last year, it was both enjoyable but exhausting, as we sang 8 services in 7 days, with a lot of new (and in some cases, challenging) music. With the exception of one day off, we spent the best part of each day rehearsing, before singing evensong at 5.15. On Sunday we sang a total of 3 services, which kept us busy from 8.45am until 7.30pm.

Compared to some of the cathedrals in which I’ve sung, Bristol Cathedral is fairly small, and as such, less overrun with tourists and more welcoming than many.

One the other hand, St Mary Redcliffe is, on the scale of parish churches, really rather grand, but no less friendly for that. During the break in services I wandered in with my camera and was made very welcome by the sidemen on duty, who even made me a cup of tea!

One bonus of choir trips is the chance to visit parts of England that I would probably never venture to otherwise. This was my first visit to Bristol, and I had the feeling that there was plenty more to be seen, if I’d only had the time and energy!

Of course, since we were staying in Clifton, we couldn’t miss seeing the famous Clifton Suspension Bridge, designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel. Lit up at night, it was really quite a sight, although some of us were more impressed by it than others!

We were also lucky that our visit coincided with the attraction of the annual Balloon Festival, which was also based in Clifton. The balloons went up twice a day – at 6am and 6pm. Unfortunately, the one morning I managed to get up in time to go out and take photographs, the weather was changing and there were very few balloons and a lot of clouds.

Choral Festival

Every year the RSCM (Royal School of Church Music) in North West Europe organizes a Choral Festival for its associated choirs, which are based in The Netherlands, Belgium or Luxembourg. This year, it was the turn of my choir, from the church of St. John and St. Philip in the The Hague, to organize the festival, and I was a member of the festival committee, along with my two friends Fiona and Emmy.


The choral festival takes the form of a day’s rehearsal, culminating in a themed service at the end of the day. This year, the service was a Choral Evensong, in which all the music was linked to the RSCM, which is celebrating its 80th anniversary. We held the festival at the HH Petrus Paulus kerk, a Catholic church on the Vliet canal in Leidschendam, with Nigel Groome as our musical director for the day, and Christina Edelen playing the organ.

Organizing the festival involved a lot of work, including booking the church, choosing the hymns and psalms for the service and creating a lunch for 80+ people on the day of the festival. Fortunately, we had a great deal of support from the choir in providing the lunches, though I still found myself baking flapjacks and preparing salads in the middle of the night!


And of course, I shouldn’t forget the great pleasure of loading 90 chairs into a trailer, only to have to unload them and repeat the experience the following day, thanks to some rather inconsiderate people who insisted on having them, and then rather smugly told us they hadn’t bothered to use them after all.


After all the hard work, the festival itself was a great success, and appeared to be enjoyed by all the participants. We had representatives from the affiliated choirs of The Hague, Haarlem, Utrecht, Antwerp, Rotterdam, Brussels and Luxembourg, as well as some special visitors from Dusseldorf and Swindon.

As you can see, we made a very colourful procession from the church halls, through the the main shopping street of Leidschendam, past the Hoogvliet supermarket and the local pub and into the church, with each choir wearing its own robes.

The music we sang at the service:

  • Introit – Out of the stillness – Shepherd
  • Responses – Neary
  • Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis – Nicholson
  • Anthem – Lord, thou hast been our refuge – Vaughn Williams
  • Extroit – Irish Blessing – Chilcott

Choral Evensong at the Bavokerk, Haarlem

Most people, after an overnight flight from the US back to Europe, would acknowledge defeat and head to bed for a few hours (or days…). Ever a sucker for punishment, however, I headed up to Haarlem in the afternoon to joined the choir of the English church in Haarlem for a special service of Choral Evensong at the Sint Bavokerk. The combination of jet lag, and a traditional Anglican 1662 with readings and prayers in Dutch, was somewhat surreal.


The Music List:

  • Introit – Bless o Lord, us Thy Servants – Harper
  • Preces & Responses – Nardone
  • Magnificat & Nunc Dimittis – Harwood in Ab
  • Anthem – Give us the wings of faith – Bullock
  • Extroit – Irish Blessing