Many years ago, when I first passed it, I thought it was a secret military camp or something like that. From the outside it had a certain darkness to it. But later, when fences went down and I understood I could enter the area, I found nothing but a big, flower-filled meadow inside.

Since this land is a little higher than the surrounding fields, it has an almost mountain-like feel. The low, linear horizon surrounding it is interrupted only by a few farms and the blunt tower of Ransdorp, once drawn by Rembrandt, probably when it was the temporary hometown of his housekeeper and lover, Geertje Dircx. Also the high risers of Amsterdam are there in view, far away, the church towers of Zunderdorp, Broek in Waterland and Monnikendam, and to the east one can see what I think must be the buildings of a completely different city, Almere, though the latter structures are only visible on the clearest days.

There is history in this blooming hill. A poisonous one. Buried in the ground lies some extremely toxic materials, among them dioxins. Barrels of chemicals were unlawfully deposited here by big business in the 1960s. Thousands of barrels. Since the area earlier had been used to dig out peat to be dried for fuel, it already had big sunken areas, and I guess it was these that were used by the city and by commercial enterprises as a land fill. Ironically peat, like the one that was first was removed to be burned, is one of the best capturers of carbon dioxides. It is a ground that was marred twice.

Then in recent times, and through major endeavors, the toxic ground was covered in layers of huge sheets and masses of soil. On top came fresh water and vegetation. To make new peatland probably takes a very long time, but there are plenty of wet areas, and to one side a wide, dry grassland with a path across. A crossing over some water is built as concrete stepping stones, otherwise there are few signs of it being a public park. The borders aren’t marked and there are no visible barriers between the hill and the lower landscape.

The grass is kept mostly uncut to the pleasure of beasts and birds. How well the beasts in the ground are sealed in, I wouldn't know. But this year, for the first time, I saw one of the marsh orchids that are plentiful outside the hill, also grow on it. Like an old garment most carefully mended to last many more seasons, it seems to work for now.