In the Haarlems Dagblad there's an article about a recent discovery in the Grote Kerk in Haarlem.
Three old church bells have been re-discovered and have been repaired. They seem to have been 'forgotten' in the sixties when they stopped functioning. Now they'll be clinging around Christmas.
The oldest bell is (probably) from around 1666. Traditionally the clinging of these bells indicates the start of the funfair.
Exterior of the Church of Saint Bavo in Haarlem Gerrit Berckheyde, 1666
Every now and then I read the website of the Haarlems Dagblad (the local newspaper).
Today I saw some good news: the cacoa-factory will close in September 2004. They are moving to Amsterdam. The factory sometimes causes a nasty smell in the whole city; it's especially bad in the summer.
When I started smelling smoke, my first thought was to look at my monitor. I had a computer monitor on fire once, many years ago.
The smoke came from outside, there's was a huge black cloud coming from the Waarderpolder. I didn't have a lot to do, so I went to take a look. There's a building on fire on the Waarderweg, near the Vomar but at the other side of the river. The smoke smells a bit like that from the steam-trains in Opperdoes. Only there is a lot more of it, of course.
It's seems like quite a large fire, let's hope nobody gets hurt.
I went to the Grote Markt in my lunchbreak (it's just a regular working for us). I wanted to have a look at the weird tent -- it turned out to be from Oxfam.
We arrived there perhaps 10 minutes after the official start of Liberation Day but there weren't a lot of people. The weather is the same a last year: really bad.
Today was the funeral of Mr. R. Knipper, one of the three volunteer firefighters who died last Sunday when the Koningkerk burned down.
I was at the Grote Markt (went to get a haircut after lunch) and there were many people gathered. A lot of busses too, many firefighter crews came from all over the country.
It was the first time ever that firefighters died in action in Haarlem. Two of my collegues also work for the volunteer firebrigade.
The bridge is closed -- boats waiting in line at the Spaarne.
When I started smelling smoke, my first thought was to look at my monitor. I had a computer monitor on fire once, many years ago.
Saturday evening we went to see the Bloemencorso arriving in Haarlem. This is a big annual Flower Parade.