De Kwade Hoek

[janestarz]

Saturday NoKey and I drove down south-west (yes, there's a south-west on land from where we live!), to Goedereede, on the semi-island of Goeree-Overflakkee. We would visit my mother's sister Chris and her husband, and possibly walk in the Kwade Hoek (the Angry Corner). The Kwade Hoek is a slip of land that oftentimes overflows with storm. When Goedereede was still a prosperous city with harbour in the Golden Age, the ships would navigate slowly around the Kwade Hoek, with its sandbanks and treacherous flows, and come into the 'goede ree' (that must be a skipper's term).
The Kwade Hoek has changed a lot. Last time I was there, we still had Curly with us, and we walked there between puddles and sand, Curly dragging half a tree-trunk around and having a ball. Now, the whole thing is grown over with dune-grasses, and it's more green than sandy.

My aunt told us about a February storm when they tried to find the truth behind the legend. People said that with a storm, the area would flood. It was stormy, and they went over to see. Nope, it was still dry. And after half an hour they decided to walk in there to see. At the dunes, they stood looking at the sea, but they were still dry.
When they turned around, the land behind them had flooded. The water of the sea would encounter the Delta works (a protection from high waters in several places in our country, I used to see these every day when I cycled to school, Malor lives very near there now.). The sea would collide with the Haringvliet barrier and flow back, into the Kwade Hoek. The land lower than the dunes would flood, effectively trapping people on the dunes at the time. Chris and IJsbrand (pr.: Icebrahnd) waded back, the water came to their chest and was about 3° C.

But Saturday the weather was really nice. It was actually warm in the sun, and I took off my jacket. We encountered a lot of plants I read about in my herbal encyclopedia:

• Althaea officinalis, Heemst. From the fibers of the stem they made rope, and the fluids from the roots help against angina, colds, coughs. Tea from the dried roots (don't boil) helps cure inflammations of mouth, gums, throat, stomach and bowels. (from my encyclopedia, roughly translated and excerpted).
  
• Asparagus officinalis, Asperge.
  
• Euphrasia stricta, (Stijve) Ogentroost. From the tea of this plant can be made a compress to help against inflammated, tired or tearing eyes. Drinking the tea has the same effect.
  
• Zeekraal, possibly this is the Salicornia virginica.
  
• Calamagrostis epigeios, duinriet, or in English: Bushgrass.
  
• Eryngium maritimum, Blauwe Zeedistel. That was pretty!

I like plants.
The area is under the care of Natuurmonumenten, so you can't pluck stuff. Besides, where would I leave plants? Chris occasionally brings along seeds for her own garden, which gave them some nice plants, the asparagus officinalis is something they can eat in the spring, and then produces a beautiful plant for the rest of the year.

Hem hem. So anyway, after traipsing through the dunes there I could sense NoKey had relaxed a lot. The garden of Chris and IJsbrand is much much prettier than what we get around here. They just do the wild thing ++. I loved their 'stokrozen' (Althaea rosea, familie Malvaceae) in dark reddish purple, going towards black. Very beautiful.

Saturday was such a relaxing day. I just need to learn to bring my camera like everywhere!

Comments

[coen.livejournal.com]

It is nice to have a garden, and try to grow the plants that you see in other places.
But a garden is not the same thing as a place where plants grow in the wild.
You can have the same plants, and be more or less succesful in growing them, and that is great, but it is still not the same thing as seeing those plants in the wild. Seeing them in the wild is something special, and you can't copy that special thing into your garden.

Nevertheless, it is great to have a garden, and I hope you and Nokey will have a house with a garden one day. I know you'll love it.