Almost too late in the afternoon, but we felt compelled to leave the house and our screens for at least a few hours before office life would take over again. So we took the car and drove to the beach. Sometimes it’s the woods but frankly, this coastal area with its heath and dunes stretching along the entire country, feels like the only proper Dutch landscape, whereas the woods, well, they feel like a poor imitation of what the name suggests. These are landscapes that I have known all my life. Not necessarily liked, but known. Trees and shrubs always a bit messy, brownish and barren on a sandy soil. A transitional area, a landscape that has never properly made up its mind. Not very pretty really. But there is a path, of course. Because every bit of what we have, and it isn’t much, is designated for recreational purposes.