The Central Library of The Hague (English website) is currently closed due to the lockdown. They are a bit more pragmatic than my hairdressers – they at least use terms like “closed until further notice” and “you can no longer visit until at least 9 February 2021”. Pragmatic because who knows when libraries will open again, and pragmatic because at least they don’t need to update the website again and again as the lockdown is extended. On the other side of the spectrum my hairdresser emailed to say “We are open from 10 February!” although they did also say all appointments would be cancelled automatically if they had to stay closed, so there was no risk to you.
This afternoon I requested a few hours leave. Marco and I took a walk – probably the first decent walk together in at least a month – and I snapped this photo of the central library café:
As you can see a few stuffed animals were allowed to enter the library even if humans can’t. I can imagine they were waiting for cups of chocolate milk. The character on the right is Nijntje (in English her name is Miffy, see also the English Wikipedia article). She also has her own official website: miffy.com. The character in the middle is a stork, which appears in a lot of The Hague imagery, including in its coat of arms (English Wikipedia). I assume the stuffed animal on the left is simply a rabbit, but who knows. Maybe that is a famous character as well.
Opsteker voor boekverkopers na oproep tot steuntje in de rug tijdens lockdown from nos.nl in Dutch. Translated: Boost for booksellers after call for support during lockdown. There was even a hashtag #steunjeboekhandel, or support your book store.
Happy Friday everyone. Maybe I will go read one of the books I have lying around shortly…
Life in the Hague 