Moniek Kramer always wanted a little house in the countryside. At the age of 65, struggling with the fallout from her father’s death, she finally got it
In her rented home in central Amsterdam, where she lived for many years, Moniek Kramer dreamed of greenery. She grew up by the river Amstel on the outskirts of the city, until her parents separated when she was 10, and, maybe, “was longing to go back there”. In adulthood, she kept looking for a house, “a small house”. She had all but given up, when, at 65, she found it.
Kramer was reading an article in De Groene Amsterdammer newspaper about Henry David Thoreau, the 19th-century American philosopher whose book Walden is based on his experience of living in a woodland cabin. An advert caught her eye: “‘Are you looking for your own Walden hut?”
Tell us: has your life taken a new direction after the age of 60?
