This is  Afsluitdijk –  plus for minus.  Cornelis Lely’s dream is not climate-change-safe, it  being due  maintenance at an esteemed 270 million Euro. Else a once-every-thousand-year extreme wind and tide would do away with this important part of the Netherland’s coastal defence – which truly does not bear thinking about. In true Dutch fashion, a lot of committees have let their light shine on this problem, and renovation is expected to start in 2015. Let’s keep our fingers crossed to influence the odds in our favour meanwhile.

I want to do more than cross my fingers – it is my dream to draw crosses the whole length of the Afsluitdijk. If the higway was closed for traffic for a while so that Formula-1 coureur Robert Doornbos could race his car (August 15th 2006), why not close it for a few hours more and let me draw a little?