The Tin Lady and Her Nearby Dussen Castle

Let's take a well-deserved break from our Malta vacation!

It so happens that our first real outing since returning from Malta (on 18 April) was this past Sunday to visit a virtual Facebook friend who is now R E A L.  She lives in nearby Raamsdonkveer, only 23 km from Gorinchem.

We met Janny in her lovely home for a delightful lunch before a short drive to tour the Dussen Castle, which I'll get to in a minute.  But the minute I entered her home, all I could see was her collection of tins...everywhere.  She called it a "museum."  Truer words were never spoken.

As you walk into her living room, there are two shelf units like this.

This is the first one you see.

You know me.  I had to zero in on each and every cubby hole with tins.

How could you resist looking at every single one of them!

And as if that weren't enough, the second unit was even more chock full.

I have discovered that tins like this are very common here in the Netherlands.

When we go to the Kringloop (second-hand store), I find them there for c h e a p.

I want to buy them all but can't, because we don't have the space.

Don't you love how creatively Janny displays them!

She has an artistic flair throughout her entire house 

(and garden, I might add, though I didn't photograph it).

I thought I was done, of course, till I walked into the kitchen and found this:

It makes you want to be a tin man/woman, doesn't it!  Or maybe you already are one?

Ho-hum.  I suppose that's how the Dutch see their tins and everything else?

I just eat it all up.

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

After a delicious lunch (which I also didn't photograph, but should have), we drove to Dussen Castle,

10 km from Janny's house.

It was a rainy, drizzly sort of overcast day.  But who cares.

As castles go, with its moat, it's a good one, even in the rain.

And since that's where I first started taking pics of Janny, here she is.

Yes, she's a photographer and that's how we met, from our Dutch group's Facebook site.

In the shield above the entrance you see all the families who lived here since the 13th century.

The castle was damaged during WWII but was renovated in 1980.

Once you enter the front door of the castle, you find out this is NOT like any other Dutch castle.

Dutch castles do NOT have Italian-type porticoes surrounding their inner courtyards.

So this one is special, thanks to one of the owners along the line.

It would have been enough to see this courtyard alone, while waiting for our guided tour.

But we did go inside and were shown around by a volunteer who loves castles.

This castle at one point was Dussen's city hall with its own mayor!

There were a couple rooms I can't show for advertising reasons...

the wedding chapel and the reception rooms.

But these give you a feel for the rest.

Did I mention that one tower is round and the other octagonal (left-center)?

Yup...one lady owner needed straight walls for her furniture.  

Once outside the castle again we walked around the property.

Can you imagine living next door to a castle...and not being able to see it.  HA!

During the course of that outing, you know we found some more weathervanes, of course.

Janny was the one who knew where to find the cat vane (for YOU, Maria!).

And that was it.  Just another Sunday in our Dutch neighborhood!