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Warm and dry but shifting underfoot. This land used to be sea-bed but within the last hundred years it has been reclaimed, drained, and planted as new forest. It is littered with white sea-shells and dark pine-needles, both of which can slide between the toes and pierce the skin. Beyond the young trees lies a stretch of shallow water reflecting the summer sky and enclosed by the perfect line of a dike. There are few sounds here - just the occasional bird, or a distant car passing along the elevated road. Everything is geometrically regular: the water is at a constant depth of one metre; the dike is exactly the same width and height all the way along; the trees are equidistant and of the same species, although nature has created some variety of size. Everywhere you see only verticals, horizontals, and the spaces in between. A geometry of newness and calm.
The footnote to this appears as:
Derived from memories of childhood visits to Holland, and built as a virtual room #90943 at LambdaMOO.
The room number is incorrect. At one time I had a number of characters at LambdaMOO and used up a lot of quota. Inevitably different rooms were built by different characters and this one (called Sandforest) was originally built by Pinetree, who later expired when my computer was stolen and I lost all the passwords I had not previously memorised. With Pinetree went this room and everything else e had built, but I had saved the description and so was able to remake it. It can now be found at #103691
