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This alto SINGS – zoom in – and one of the tunes that I recognised was Joe Dassin’s L’été indien. Station Zuid. (That is Amsterdam.)

Yes, I have a bad cold. Hence the Dutch licorice. It helps! Initially… Unfortunately, and oh so stupidly, the stuff also contains sulphites: https://www.allergyuk.org/resources/sulphites-and-airway-symptoms-factsheet/ (No more licorice for me, for sure. The stuff ended nearly killing me, so to speak. Holy smokes. Very unpleasant, and lasting for hours. Though I must admit that I’d been coughing very badly last evening too, except not this bad and this long. It’s horrible. I have no N-acetyl cysteine with me; have ordered some now but should have done it before. An dealing with bad allergies, too, at the moment.)

Parsnips are very English. I love their taste and texture.

Amstelveen has changed a lot. I recognise old bits, but there’s been a heck of a lot of construction in the past few decades. I used to cycle a lot there, towards Uithoorn to cycle back along the Amstel river, before I moved to the States, and I used to have a friend there, too. Halte Sportlaan!

So many of my friends and professional contacts have passed away while I was in England.