The Deadly Nightshade 2

The windows of the Brown estate were boarded up. The contents of the house disappeared as Byron Browns creditors clawed at everything that wasn’t nailed down.

Like a complete jigsaw puzzle being dismantled one piece at a time, Belladonna watched the life she knew disappear and the skeleton of a new one form.

The feeling of cold invisibility, she felt like a wallflower, a spectator as strangers in single file raped the contents of her home.

“No,” she screeched at one of the removalists, clutching her wooden spinning top until the carved symbols on its surface pressed red indentations into her palm. Set about his task he ignored the little girl’s protestations and her pain.

She was the last thing to be liquidated. Lilydale’s Finishing School sent a car for her one overcast Sunday. A heavyset Turkish schoolmistress, Ma’am, as she insisted on being called, had been sent to escort Belladonna to her new home.

“You will collect your things and come with me, your Grandfather has enrolled you and you will receive an education commensurate with your breeding. The death of your irresponsible parents was the best thing that could have happened to you, imagine, home schooling a child,” without making eye contact Ma’am judgmentally surveyed the wreckage of the once proud Brown estate, “Don’t dally child we have a long journey, go!”

Tears stung her eyes, “No!”

Throwing her toy on the ground she ran for the door. With her eyes closed she kept running but she could no longer feel the ground under her feet. Ma’am had her suspended by her shirt colour as she struggled desperately to free herself of this circumstance.

“You’d do well not to make an enemy of me young lady and I’ll only say this once more, GO!”

What do you pack? How do you pack a childhood into a single trunk? You can’t.

So she packed nothing.

“I’m ready, Ma’am”

“That’s a good girl.”

People to eat, things to see...

Not all cities can do food. Of course, all cities have food but Amsterdam is a city that does food, it enjoys it's food. It was an interesting dichotomy from New York where food is plentiful and quantity and economy are king to Amsterdam where quality reigns supreme.

No where is this dichotomy more evident than in chocolate. At the Hershey's store on 5th Avenue in New York I saw plump tourists smack their lips at the prospect of a bargain 3kg block of chocolate while in Amsterdam there are small, independently owned chocolate shops where you pay about the same but come away with half a dozen petite and artful morsels.



Puccini was a on the corner of our block and had everything from white chocolate with vanilla, dark chocolate with chili, gin with lime rind and walnut truffles with cinnamon.

When in Rome? When in Amsterdam, Pancake.

Pancakes at Barney's with strawberries and from Sara's pancake house with Bananas. Also my own attempt at French toast with the Maple syrup or Ahornstroop that I bought from the near by organic farmers market.





Cheese, Cheese and more Cheese. My favorite is the white fleshed semi-hard goats cheese which is made by hand in Holland. Above was my breakfast, Goats Cheese, Triple Bree with truffles, Saint Agur blue, tomato relish, Grapes and Sourdough (the coffee and the joint are out of frame ; ).It's worth a trip for the food alone but the best thing was the sense of community that all these small independent shops engender. I loved it! Although I think I'll go easy on the maple syrup next time ; ).

A European Black Hole

When I got home from my trip I had spectacularly vivid memories of New York, memories that wake me at night and pictures that make my daydreams more pleasant than they have been in a long time.

Amsterdam on the other hand...

When I recounted my trip to a friend,

"So, how was Amsterdam?"

"um..."

"Haha," he said, "don't worry, I had the same experience, Amsterdam is a black hole."

Names of places come back in a hazy fog and memories like an avant-garde montage.

Like many tourists holidaying with a new lover in a city where marijuana is legal, I fell into the proverbial black hole.

Walking from the apartment we stayed in, on more than one occasion we passed a preschool. It was -5 degrees and the children dropped off on the back of bicycles looked like adorable walking small winter coats, all eyes, mittens and feet.

Staying in the Centrum (the central precinct in Amsterdam) in a furnished apartment meant I could feel more a resident than a tourist.



Should you like winter and gray days then you would love this city in January.

The architecture is spectacular. Often described as a living museum, you can't help but walk around this city and feel humble. As Australians with our oldest European influenced architecture dating as recently as 200 years, Amsterdam is 700 years old in parts. The streets never built for traffic and the pace of life feels the same. It's foreign and infectious.

The view from the balcony of the apartment.