Utrecht

We have spent two days in Utrecht which is a very busy city. The temperature did not rise above zero and was mostly below this. Absolutely freezing. Aaron and Kylie live in a large apartment in the middle of Utrecht. They move out to their house in Houton at the end of January. In the meantime Kylie has to take the children to their school, a trip that takes more than an hour each day. She has to walk to the railway station, then catch a train and then walk again when she gets to Houton. I think they will be relieved when they move to their house, which is only five minutes from school. A typical scene in Utrecht.
Amongst the cycles. There are thousands and thousands of bicycles.

The bakfiets - a bicycle that needs lots of good balance, especially when loaded with children and shopping! Kylie loves it!

Outside Aaron and Kylie's apartment - they live in the top two floors plus a roof terrace which requires a steep climb up the ceiling ladder.

Gouda

It was very cold here! The canals are still frozen, although some of them are showing signs of melting a little bit. I do not think the temperature has risen above 1 degree. Still everything is beautiful and the people very friendly. And the cold does not deter the number of people riding bicycles and without hats or gloves! The Dutch people are a hardy lot.

We stayed two nights with Hans and Jose and were very spoilt, with lots of lovely Dutch food. On Sunday evening we ate Huzarensla which is a salad made of meat, potatoes, mayanaise, eggs and peas and a salad made with fresh smoked salmon and smoked trout, North Sea shrimps and crabs. And last night Stampot, which is mashed potatoes mixed with vegetables that have been cooked in stock, plus meatballs and thick slices of bacon and a gravey made with the juices of the meat. Very fattening but so delicious.

During the day we went shopping in Gouda and spent lots of money in the sales in the Hema, one of my favourite Dutch shops.
There was a skatng rink in the town square. The children used plastic animals to support them as they learned to skate.

Jody's dog was a great success. She really liked us and wanted to sit on our knee all the time.

Now we are in Utrecht where it is even colder!

More travel

Great excitement - we are off again tomorrow, with Darren. In the motorhome. We have packed extra duvets, ski jackets, snow boots and chains - just in case.

The itinerary is as follows: -
We will have to get up very early, too early for a retiree. We take the ferry from Dover to Calais, travel up the other side, through the top of France, through Belgium and into Holland. We will stay with Hans and Jose in Gouda for two nights, then to Aaron and Kylie's in Utrecht for two nights.
We will collect Jay and Jespa from Utrecht, travel back down through Belgium and France to Paris where we will stay in a flat in a camping ground. We intend to visit Euro Disney and the centre of Paris.
Billie will then take the children back to Holland, while we go on to the Loire Valley, Brittainy and Normandy.
And no work!

Bed Hopping

Oh to have one of those lovely big houses that you get in Australia or NZ. Shona and Richard's house would be great - three spare bedrooms and two studies plus large kitchen, lounge room and sitting room. All one one level!

In the very dim past we also had two very large houses, the one by the beach had ten rooms plus a very large enclosed front verandah. Now we have a maisonette with five rooms!

When we have lots of visitors you have to learn to juggle the beds, and sitting space. First we had Aaron and Kylie and three children. As soon as they left Billie, Jay and Jespa moved in, and when they left Rhys and Karen moved in - the moving in means before the previous occupants have actually left the house. We have just enough time to change the sheets. On one day we had eight adults and five children in the house during a changeover of occupants. It was an interesting exercise and caused lots of laughs as we continually bumped into each other. The washing machine is getting well used, with everything drying on radiators and people having to find different items of clothing once dried!

Kylie is about to do the same in Holland and they are in a flat and no spare rooms. Donna has been accommodating the extras - Darren and sometimes Jay and Jespa. Emma and Steve are packing up their house and are preparing move into Donna's house until their new house has been renovated. It is all go!

The moles in the garden must also have visitors, judging by the increased number of mole hills or they are having an early spring clean of their tunnels.

The morning after

What do you do when you wake up late after New Year Eve celebrations? Clean the house! Thank you Walter.
And play on the computers!

Life is back to normal!

Happy New Year

Happy New Year to everyone. We wish you all the very best for the coming year.

We had a lovely evening, playing cards and dominoes with Reece and Karen. I actually won the dominoes game 'Mexican Train' but badly lost at Uno, which is as usual. I don't think I have ever won a Uno game. The rules for this game vary depending on the interpretation. We call them German, French or English rules and tonight we had another variation - Australian. It is a family tradition to play cards on New Years Eve and we missed all our fellow players who were off celebrating New Year elsewhere. Donna and Darren went to a pub in Bexley - hope they did not get too drunk! Emma and Steve went to a party. Scott, who is now 16, went off to his own party. Aaron, Kylie and Billie celebrated New Year in Holland with firework celebrations that sounded like World War 111.

The firework display in London was fantastic. If you do not live in the UK make sure you take a moment to watch them on TV. They are impressive! I wonder who paid for them?

Happy New Year.

Technology

My computer crashed at the beginning of the week so I paid a man £30 to give advice over the phone in order that I reconfigure the computer. Once started, the instructions were on the computer in front of me but that is how computer technology works - you pay someone to give advice. I had to reload everything back on again via memory sticks (took ages) so now I have an external back up system (somewhere in cyber space). I have more security on the computer so that 'bugs' do not get in and play havoc, which is what I think happened. I now have the laptop working again with even more software on it and it is even better so I am very happy.
I have also bought a new BlackBerry (BlackBerry Bold) which is fantastic, so fast and more to play with and use. For the past few months I have only had a very basic contract which allowed 100 free texts, no free telephone calls and no internet (I thought this is what I should do seeing that I am a pensioner!). Thank goodness I saw reason so now I am on a decent contract again - back to free texts, telephone calls and lots of internet. It costs money of course but pensioner frugalness can only go so far. This also applies to good wine and coffee!