lost and found

While walking through the Vondelpark one morning 

I found this interesting looking fence surrounding a tree. it was decorated with cut out birds and the ubiquitous XXX symbol - the three St Andrew's Crosses of the Amsterdam Coat of Arms - and a website for vindhek.com






nearby was this large sign as an explanation

the fence surrounding the tree was a 'find fence' or a lost and found fence.  the sign says something along the lines of "find a lost object, add a found one".  if you find something that someone has dropped, you can hook it onto the fence.  if you've lost something, this might be a great place to look for it after you've done a thorough pocket and ground search.  what a great idea. honesty and trust, and so friendly!
but I wondered about the flags for 18 different languages (English, Chinese, Swedish, Italian, German, Greek, Norwegian, Japanese, Danish, Turkish, Frisian, Moroccan, Surinamese, French, Hungarian, Spanish, Russian, Finnish). I think the idea is to make the fence an interactive experience where you upload a photo onto some social media site and link back to vindhek.

anyway, as you can see there weren't too many objects on the fence on this particular weekend, 
several keys, though! 

I imagine that there would be many lost mittens, scarves, keys etc., in the winter as people constantly put their hands in and out of their pockets.  I wonder if any euros have been pinned to the fence??

oh, and as an aside, during my research once I got home, I discovered that the birds were special to Amsterdam - they are finches. in Utrecht the birds are robins, and in Amersfoort they are swallows. the birds also adorn the benches in the park. 

Apart from linking with Lesley's signs, signs
I am also linking with a new meme I discovered by Restless Jo for Jo's Monday Walk. Lots of new-to-me-blogs to discover from her meme, so pop on over to see what it's all about.