Sitting on the fence on our flooded street

After the great flood and fog of Roermond in Holland had subsided we were able to get back to our nice cold tent and resume ice carving, but not after wading in the freezing water and doing a little game of knock a door run around the floating houses which doesn’t work so well when you are wading through knee deep water in your underpants.

Shaving Rex

Rex was waiting for Rodrego and I with his big menacing drooling head looking all handsome but without a body.  That was to be our task over the next days, lots of hacking at snow and then piling up like bricks and cementing them with water and slush.

In the meantime there was T-Rex’s friend Raptor waiting in his block of ice to be carved and given life.  Been a simple square block of ice, no matter how big doesn’t suit the style of a leaping dinosaur. He was to be screaming at Rex, not happy that he wasn’t going to share his food which was to be a rather unfortunate triceratops still alive but half eaten.  But you have to watch these velociraptors, they are so fast and athletic that even Rex may have problems.

To save time I started to carve Raptor whilst my partner in crime Rodrego Ferrari finished off Rex and gave him some cute little arms.  I had made a design where raptor was in mid-leap twisting towards Rex in a threatening manner.  The tail of this creature is much longer than his body and I was to raise it in the air in a confident and defiant gesture that was to illustrate his balance and grace.  The arc would frame Rex’s face nicely and also had the additional benefit of making our sculpture the highest one in the tent, just piping the transformer Optimus Prime by a foot much to the displeasure of its maker Michael de Kok; which means Michael the cook in English to clear up any ambiguities.

Dinner

Actually making the tail was a totally different matter of course, it looks so easy on paper.  It got a little embarrassing at the amount of scaffolding I had to keep asking for.  “Just a little more please,…….oh, could I have another set on this side,…….do you think we could perhaps have a third level?”  And then when I had to climb up it I must say I felt a little weak in the stomach, I think it was a combination of vertigo and the constant swaying.  It is a daunting feeling when you are five meters up in the air whilst sliding a narrow piece of ice that is almost my body weight onto another small pillar of ice. What’s more, because the tail was so delicate I had to carve in a downward motion which meant I could only look down for the entire day, the scaffolding swaying gently each time i carved the ice.

Placing the Tail

It pretty much took me over a day to make the tail, I could not use the chainsaw as it was so delicate so I had to carefully chisel away gently so that the tail would not sway and break.  After that it was cool running’s and Rodrego joined me for the final hurdle of finishing up, carving like crazy with ice chips flying everywhere.  It is still early days for Rodrego and ice sculpting and he made a comment on how beautiful the sound is of the chisel cutting through the ice and then the crystals falling to the ground was, each one a musical note.  It was indeed one of the things that most mesmerised me when I first started, I must remember not to forget the simple things.

Our pets

Rex and Raptor were eventually finished and we all gathered to celebrate the finishing of the project by banging on the floor with crowbars for two hours to remove patches of ice from the pathway so that nobody slipped.  After that inspired interlude we upped the game to celebrate with our traditional glass of champagne curtosy of our hosts sculpture events.  It is always a great pleasure and honour to share the company of so many talented and wonderful people for the short period of time that we spend together each year and I am very grateful for it.  I salute you my friends!

Jamie

The boys waiting for the boat to pick them up

Myself and Roders have just been in the freezer tent in Holland making our 4 meter T-rex that is undecided on whether it should freeze or melt as the temperature is fluttering between -2 and +2 C.  As a consequence I as any Englishman of our humid Island can emphasise, was thoroughly damp and cold.  But I was not alone in this resplendent condition; there were 30 other carvers from over the world stood in our damp cloths whilst we waited for the special announcement.

“We have a little bit of a situation” said Huib our director, he is of a typical Dutch disposition with his tall height, blue eyes and fair hair.  But he was not standing tall this moment, he was slumped against the table whilst he addressed us, not defeated, but certainly fatigued. “As you know it has been raining hard,” it was this torrential rain that had been causing the freezer tent to be so warm. “It has been raining so hard that the roads to our houses are totally flooded.”  This was not a good thing to be telling 30 people who were hungry and rank with damp, desperately wanting to eat and shower.  “But although we cannot get there by car we can get there by boat.”  The adventure was about to begin.  “…..this has not happened for ten years.”

With the excitement of an adventure and boat ride we changed our cloths and hurried to the cars, driving down country roads to find our passage.  Awaiting us was a boat to take us to the restaurant on the mariner.  But it then dawned on us that our actual houses would be flooded.  Furthermore, my friend Ludo had left her car beside her house apparently now bathing in water.  I hate to say this Ludo, but I won a bet on the whether the authorities would take your car from the flooded area.  They did not and so I won.  Whilst we ate, Ludo managed to drive her car back from the houses onto dry land through the water, apparently not knowing where the road was as it was immersed.

on the boat

But I reluctantly confess that the Dutch are clever fellows even for a country that is even smaller than my own, rather unfortunate if you consider that they are all so big.  They are so clever in fact that we ate our tea with growing enthusiasm and excitement at what was to come with not even a hint of despair. They are used to water problems with all their dikes and irrigation systems, but they have not stopped there, they have even now built the ultimate defence against the risk of flood, in England we try to control the rivers with our clumsy sand bags, but no, in Holland they just build houses that can never get wet because they simply float.

The floating street, madina oolderhuuske

No, it is not a boat or a boat house, it is a floating house, a house that goes up and down in the water and is attached to a simple pole so that it doesn’t float away; that would be very confusing.  When you are in it you can occasionally feel it bobbing around, it has a concrete base, a chimney, a roof, windows, a front door and a balcony.  In fact, it is not just one or a couple of floating houses, but a whole street, with street lights and plants, playgrounds for kids to play in, and instead of having gnomes in the garden they have ducks of all different types; they seem to be having the last quack.  The only real problem with the floating house is actually getting to it.  But the Dutch come up trumps again and just throw another boat in the equation. But then this has not happened as aforementioned for 10 years and the boat driver is not so accustomed to driving his big boat down narrow watery streets, so you can forgive him for crashing it a couple of times along the way, especially in the ‘hurricane winds’ that are the cause of all the rain.

But we sculptors were not perturbed, quite merry after a few beverages and all ready to test our new sea legs, we rallied upon the boat and then searched for our houses in the dark, scrambling upon our balconies with a cheer from our brethren on the account of not falling in the water and drowning.  But now we are all safe in our floating houses, the rain cannot touch us here.

the flood and the floating house

…..two days later.  The water may not have got us, but the fog has.  We are now stranded in our floating houses as nobody will sail the boat in the fog that descended this morning.  We have one pack of muesli, three bananas and a bottle of single malt whiskey between the four of us.  Now the fun begins.

Rationing in the fog

Jamie

I’m overlooking the water and there is a group of ash trees in front, the sun has just gone down but it is still warm.  The leaves are just coming out of their delicate buds and the ducks are quacking the last of the daylight away in a lasting attempt to attract some attention. It is the beginning of spring and one of my favourite times of the year; the joy that is life all springing forward anew.  Maybe I like this period of the year in particular as I am also a spring baby.  The bull.

This lovely spot is the outskirts of Roermond, Holland.  I’m lucky to be here as the ash plume from the volcano that erupted in Iceland was only three hours behind my flight; one of the last from the UK to Europe.  It is incredible that all the planes are now grounded.  The earth makes a little burp and everything stops.  Great.

I am enjoying the fact that there are no planes in the sky at the moment, no vapour trails or hum of jet engines.  I’ve even taken to not wearing my earphones all day as the air is somehow clearer of sound and filled with the melody of bird song.  There are now some Coots on the water doing their mating dance, bobbing their heads from side to side and cooting a lot.

On the downside there are only half the carvers here for the project.  There should be 30 and there are only 15, but still 8,000 tonnes of sand looms before us unrelenting which means that we have to all carve like crazy for two weeks to finish the project on time.  Hopefully, our colleagues will join us soon if the volcano has a rest.  Some sculptors have driven here, Uldis has just finished a 36 hour bus ride from Riga, Latvia to get here. He has gone to the bar to find his sanity, he just spoke to me for 15 minutes on the cons of polarised glasses; the poor lad is delirious.  Some other chaps drove all the way from Prague, Czech Republic to get here, others all the way from Spain; the troops are mobilising and reinforcements have been called upon.  The great Henry arrived today who I have not seen for five years.

My task is to make a mountain scene.  On this mountain are some mountain goats and to the side a Yak.  A chap from Russia called Ilya who is a sculpting god was supposed to do the mountain with me helping.  The volcano in Iceland has said otherwise as he’s not here.  I’m not sure when Ilya is going to turn up; if at all.  I may have to do this mountain myself which is quite daunting as mountains are typically rather large.  But then what has to be done has to be done. If Ilya does turn up I think he will have a mental breakdown if he sees that I have already started.  There is something entirely de-motivating about finishing or helping to finish someone else’s work. Perhaps it is because you had no say in the creative idea and composition.  I do not envy him.  For the moment I’m just finishing my Yak.  I have made it with two calves or ‘mini cows’ as Anique calls them, because it’s cute and serves the practical purpose of holding up the Yaks head, it would fall off otherwise.  I was a little worried earlier as one of the calf’s began to look like a Rottweiler mauling my Yaks throat.  It now just looks like a ‘mini cow Rottweiler cross’.

Am I going to be able to get home to England?  I like Holland, but it is a little flat.  Bring on the rolling hills of Yorkshire.

To volcanoes!

What?  There is a plane in the sky!  I feel like a child again.

Jamie