Amsterdam May Long Weekend - 3rd to 5th

Statues depicting The nightwatch, a famous painting by Rembrandt

(I think)

Got to get out of London for the Bank Holiday weekend. We booked this trip ages ago, and had been hanging out to get away.

Suzie and Arthur (but not Arthur, thats another story), Brian, Richard, Lois and I were all heading to Amsterdam. I had been before with Trish, just for an overnight stop. Amsterdam is just a gorgeous city, so clean, and feelse spacious and lovely compared to London. There's something about the Dutch attitude to life too that is very refreshing. Very open and tolerant. People cycle everywhere. People are friendly and smiling, and its OK to strike up a conversation with random people - you do that in London and everyone thinks you are weird!

Bike.

We flew in on the Saturday morning, Arthur dropped us at the airport as his passport did not get back from the British Home Office in time for him to come. So he was stuck at home.

We landed, at found Lois, who came in on a different flight. Bought tickets for the train, and straight away you feel the difference between the countries. The guy who sold us the tickets was chatty and friendly telling us abou this and that that wold be on over the long weekend, and wishing us a happy stay.

So we headed for Centraal station, sitting ourselves in first class on the train as there were no other seats! No one came by to check out tickets anyway.

The weather was gorgeous every day, about 20 degrees, clear blue skies and sunny. Perfect Spring weather.

Canal Scenes

The hotel we had booked was waaaaay over the other side of the city centre, in the Leidseplein district, but seeing as it was barely 12 and we could no check in until 2, we walked, taking in the sights along the way.

Checked into the Backstage Hotel, and WOW, what a bargain for amsterdam! Funky furniture, great beds, and helpful staff. In a nice area overlooking a nice little canal too. Getting our bearings we went down to the Leidse square for a heinekin and a breather.

All the cafes line the squares, and they have loads of tables and chairs out the front, all facing the square so you can sit and people watch. Yes, it is entirely touristy, and based on the premise that there are so many tourists bustling through every day, they are not competing for your repeat custom, so the service, and food, can be questionable. The waiter was perhaps the worst I have seen, dropping a coffee cup and wine glass at the same time, and then not even bothering to clean it up at all!! So we say there and watched the world go buy, and the buskers, including the capoeira fellows in the picture.

Now let me clarify, about the types of establishments there are in the 'Dam. A coffee shop may or may not serve coffee, its primary business is smoking pot - by whatever means. A cafe, is a drinking establishment - ie beer.

Next was a wander further around town, after buying our tickets for the evening canal cruise. Through the flower market, touristy again but a necessary sight nonetheless.


Rushing home to get changed and showered and on to dinner at a thai restaurant before the canal cruise. The traditional Dutch cuisine is not much chop, they tend to focus on international food a lot. Lots of Indonesian, Argentinian and Uruguayan steakhouses, Italian, and wok in a box type places. A few gourmet delicatessons too.

The canal cruise was lovely, still light when we set out, then twilighty, and finally twinkly night, sitting out on the back deck of the boat, glass of wine in hand, with the cool evening passing us by on the banks. We went past the mayors house, and the poezenboot - a canal boat that is a cat refuge, which we later visited - past a reconstructed tall ship, through tiny little canals and big wide ones, past floating hotels and the Centraal station, and sticky beaking in the windows of the people who live in the canal boats and never close the curtains. The Dutch are not a prude lot, that is for sure.

I love this picture of Brian and Suzie, sitting out on theback deck of the boat.

We were knackered after our big day, so being pathetic, and not being the typical amsterdam long weekend party hard brits, we all slunk back to the hotel and crashed into beds.

The next day, the plan was to head to Keukenhoff. It took us from 10 am to about 3 pm to get there - wandering the shops, breakfasting in a little cafe in the flower market, and trying to figure out how to get tickets and get to the thing!
Flower Market


Keukenhoff was amazing. Entirely tulipped out, back into town, and Richard and Brian went out for a Steak dinner while us gals stayed in the hotel, you know, sitting around, gossipping and being girly.


It was hot!

And the final morning. Checked out of the hotel just in time, then wandered through another part of the city, having a gorgeous bruch (mine was carpaccio of beef, with avocado, rocket, and other yummy things, on the typical dutch dark brown and malty bread - it is delicious) More wandering around and being tourists, then we clocked up a few hours of shopping. The shopping in Amsterdam is truly excellent, I bought shoes, a dress, a skirt, and another bag to put it all in!!
Kitty at the poezenboot - cat home. He's seen better days. The luckiest cats are rescued from a street life and brought here, then people come and adopt them if they are lucky.



Canal. Bikes. Quite typical.


Then we stopped in the square for one last beer, and off to the aiport.

Back to the nitty and the gritty of the grotty dirty city that is London. *sigh*







Ahh we'll be back. We have to take Arth!!




Fish Eye lens sillyness




Pixies on lilly pads.

Keukenhoff Spring Flower display, the Netherlands

Amsterdam, Sunday 2nd of May

Brian forcibly dragged us out of the city and on to Keukenhoff Spring Flower display thingy.
I have memories of looking at pictures of tulips and windmills in books from when I was a little girl, and thinking that I wanted to see that one day.
Even as we were buying the tickets, and even though I had looked it all up on the net before we went, I never connected that Keukenhoff was THE tulip disply I had wanted to see. The realisation came within 5 seconds of walking in the gate of the gardens, it was over-awing to see. Just tulips, tulips, tulips, and a few hyacinths and other things, as far as the eye can see. Oh and buckets of people too, but fortunately the place was big enough at 80 acres, to absorb the cast of thousands that thronged around like bees over the flowers, with the click click whirr of shutters non stop in every direction.
There were just amazing, beautiful tulips, so many varieties and colours I never knew existed, all set in immaculate gardens, with different designers, and themes throughout. Here are a selection of some of the several hundred photos I took that day, with Brian's beautiful new Canon 40 D and 17-85mm Lens. (I have severe lens envy).

Meadowy

Garden Path

Burning

Pretty pink

I love that series of three pics




YELLow

Hanging around in the wrong part of town

Funny turtles

Resting

Not tulips. I never knew hyacinths smelled so strong. But they do.

Thats just afew of millions - there are so many photos my eyes are burning from sorting through them. As I went to sleep that night, the pictures in my head were made entirely from tulips. Sounds were heard as tulips, and smells were in tulip colours too.

Tulip overload!! But I love them!!

Snowing in London

Written 11th of May, about sometime back in April.

Ok, I have gotten super slack with the blog thing, and there are tonnes of things I should probably put in here.
So lets start with when Mum and Brian came to visit.

It snowed. On their last day.

We woke up in the morning, and looked out the window, and there were huge white fluffy flakes up to the size of 20 cent pieces floating down, and a few inches of snow had gathered on the ground. This is a BIG DEAL in London - sometimes in winter it snows just a little, but rarely does it gather on the ground. So it was on with the ski gear and out into it for us!!
We built a snow bunny, with squished raspberries for eyes, so he looked a little like an albino, and also a little scary.

And then we made snow angels, and caught snowflakes on our tongues, threw snowballs at mum, walked down to the Thames and looked at it, and then had to pack up and take Mum and Brian to dover to get on the boat.


I was paranoid about them being late, as I usually am, and had read the traffic reports saying there were problems en route. So we hurried on out to Dover, thinking we would be able to drop Mum and Brian and then go and have a coffee with them before we left. But there was nowhere at the boat we could go really, they didn't let anyone in who was not going on the boat. So we left them there, Mum had a few sniffles, and off we went.

On the way back, decided to stop in to a National trust property, called Igtham Mote. Its a 13th century moated manor house. It was just gorgeous driving down the country lanes with everything all snowy and beautiful.

Winter wonderland - in the middle of April for Chrissakes!!

So that was the end of another weekend. Back to the Grind.

Not really a blog entry, but a recipe

I just made pickled mushrooms, with a whole lot of other stuff thrown in with it, and it looks like it is going to be really yummy. So I'll put it all down here A) so if anyone wants to try it they can and B) So that when I want to make it again I'll know what I did.

Take 500 gms of small mushrooms, I used chestnut mushrooms, clean them just with paper towel so none of the manure stuff remains.
Finely dice half an onion
Peel a whole head of garlic into cloves.
chop a red capsicum into smallish chunks,
finely slice a red or green chilli.

Throw the lot into a big frypan - I used a wok, over medium-low heat, and add:

150 ml good olive oil
let it saute for a bit, and add about a teaspoon of black pepper (whole or cracked)
a teaspoon of dried italian herbs, and ideally some fresh thyme and oregano
2 Tablespoons of pinenuts

saute for abuot another five minutes, then add

250 ml cider vinegar or white wine vinegar
juice of a lemon

1/2 teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoon of sugar.

If there is not enough liquid to cover the mushrooms, add some water till they are barely covered.
Bring it all to the boil for a minute or two, then spoon into jars which have been sterilised (boil the jars and lids for a couple of minutes in a big pot and then put them in a hot oven for ten minutes to dry) there should be enough liquid in each jar to cover the lot. This batch made about 3 medium to large jars worth.

Let cool, then refrigerate. Can be used straight away or should keep for quite a while in the fridge! The garlic is great used in just about anything - its so good I can just eat it whole though.

There might be a bit of left over liquid - I use this stuff as a salad dressing.

Yummy.

Other than making pickled mushrooms, we have been pretty busy, and I suppose I should get around to writing those blogs. Later.

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Blackberrying

Of the fruity variety, not the electronic gadget variety.

I am amazed at how much food justr grows in this country. On the verges, hedgerows, wherever. There are apples, blackberries, apples, blackberries, nettles (yes you can eat them) and then some more blackberries. So being the hunter gatherer forager type I am, I decided I was going to get me some of this free food.

Just have to find them first. Down by bedmond lane, which is a lane that goes under the motorway and we are widening the bridge, there is a public footpath. These public footpaths criss cross the contryside, ambling through farmers fields and along hedgerows, evenunder motorways. This particular footpath, like many in the country I am sure, is particularly well endowed with Blackberry brambles. The blackberry is a sprawling thorny plant, with long canes that reachup and then dangle down, with masses of thorns, and hopefully, big fat juicy blackberries.

So one afternoon after work, I stopped back down by bedmond lane, fossicked around behing the seats in the car and came up with two cleanish plastic bags that formerly contained muffins. I started up the path, and wow, there were shiny little blackberries everywhere. I don't think it is easy for me to convey just how excited I was about this. I mean, they are berries, and I love berries, and they are for FREE, when you can buythem in the shop for 3 quid a small punnet. So I went a little nuts, pick and picking and picking. Indeed, the plants had pretty much taken over the walkway, and it was more like a duck-weave-carefullystepover-be snagged-way. Never mind the scratches, never mid the itches and the tearing of clothes, I was harvesting blackberries!! So with a large bag full, and bleeding profusely and itching profusely, I thought I'd try my luck further up the lane. BINGO, the biggest, bestest blackberries I have seen. All... right... up high.. and far out in the middle of the patch just out of my reach. Damn. So I circled them, waiting, looking for any opening... and again, BINGO! A large square concrete block - we call them Kelly blocks - was there, just a little way into the brambly patch, and I could get to it by climbing ontp the farmers gate and just stepping over. Yay, I was in big fat blackberry heaven. Doubled the haul right in this spot. Also double the number of nettle stings.

Blackberries are clever little sods. They protect themselves in several ways. The first and most obvious is the thorns of the plant itself. Just like rosebushes really. The second is buy providing the ideal habitat for an array of nast, scary, big pointy teethed spiders. I am not really a spider person, so I got creeped out numerous times byt hings I though were spiders, and actually by two spiders as well. THe third way they protect themselves is by cohabiting with nettles. For anyone who doesn't know about nettles... They bite. A plant that actually bites you, and then you get a little lump come up, and its a very itchy lump.

So by now very itchy, and scratchy, I still didn't quite have enough blackberries for my liking. Two kilos just wasn't going to cut it. Back along the road to another little section, but after the mega patch I had just cleaned out, they were measly and miserable in comparison, so I stole just a few more, and headed home. Via the apple tree at Junction 25 - Richards old work. But the apples aren't quite ripe yet.

So..all these blackberries. Richard doesn't eat them, geez, what am I going to do? Ah HAH. Jam time. So I googled how to make Jam, and got me some sugar with added pectin, a lemon, and a couple of big green cooking apples. Chop these, throw them in thepot with the juice of a lemon, a kilo of sugar, and the well washed berries. Boil for ten minutes. Test to see if the jam will set by putting it on a cold plate and pushing it around then licking it off the plate. Yep, its ready!! I cannot believe how easy it is to make jam! Its so simple, I wonder why anyone buys the stuff when they can pick the berries and make it for free....

Into the jars (wash and boiled) and lids on. I now have four big jars of apple and blackberry jam, and its really yummy. That should last me a while!!

Then we went to Norfolk on the Friday, I'll get around to posting that blog soon.

The aftermath of the blackberry jam volcano.

English drivers.

They are the best of Drivers, they are the worst of drivers. On the whole, apart from no one ever indicating, I would have to say people are pretty good, but the worst really do drag the average down. (Actually I am almost certain that BMWs aren't fitted with indicators over here. I've never seen one with them on)

For example, if you are waiting at a T section to pull out onto a busy road, someone will slow down and flash their lights to say, c'mon, you can go now. Usually this is the very last car in the queue and if he just kept on driving, you could have pulled out anyway. But hey, the thought was there. Considerate.
Then when two lanes merge into one? Forget it, no one will let you in. In fact, once you are all merging, people even pull out of the right lane over in to the left lane - or even left of the left lane - and over take on the inside to form THREE lanes of merging traffic when there really should only be two.

Or like the idiot I nearly crashed into today. Its a three lane roundabout. The left two lanes are straight ahead only, and the right lane is right turn only. I am going straight, and am, appropriately, in the middle lane. About to exit the roundabout, and the guy in the left lane next to me decides he wants to turn right, so he does. Right in front of me, without the use of indicators. Beautiful move. I am so used to this kind of rubbish now that I actually remember to hit the horn in time before he drives off, usually by the time I remember to honk in anger they are long gone. Yay for me. I need a louder horn.

Oh thats is barely the start of it. Working on the motorway you do see some funny things. Funny as in oh my god I can't believe he just did that and is still alive. When you are driving in roadworks, they have 'free recovery' so that when you break down, they spot you on the CCTV cameras, and a man in a towtruck comes out and gets you and brings you back to our compound, where you can then arrange for the removal/repair of your vehicle. They also bring back all the crashed cars. I think there are about 8 tow trucks, and they are always busy, and we see loads of good bingles brought into the yard. Last Thursday there were five big heavy haulage trucks all got towed in and parked out along the length of our (very long) driveway. These guys cruise along with the front of the truck two foot behind the back of the one in front of it at 40 or 50 miles per hour.... so when one has to stop suddenly, well, its the old concertina effect. Bumper to rear to bumper to rear.

Thats my rant for now.

Don't even get me started on pedestrians.