Homesick for old-style colonial Surinam? The camera at least is from the good old days - Bram's first, 1966.
Because of The Crisis our main reason for leaving the house is socializing – hanging out with friends, birthday-parties, graduations, newborn babies – endless reasons to loiter and enjoy. The first joy upon leaving the house is bumping into these fabulous red roses across the road.
All those special occasions keep Bram’s design skills alive, making B-Day-, baby- and graduation-wishes, and picture & video dvd’s.
The ideal guests: when having dinner with us Frank & Stella cooked up a fabulous desert, decorated with roses from our garden. The lady by the way is not Stella but Christa, looking forward to the proof of the pudding.
Yet another plate of whatever is to be served.
We all went to Machteld's graduation ceremony to witness her getting her GP diploma.
A piece of Dutch Leiden University culture: Bas (sitting in the middle) defended his PhD ‘The ne bis in idem principle in EU law’ with success.
It’s the oldest university in the Netherlands, founded in 1575. The Academia Lugduno Batava was a gift by Willem van Oranje because of the heroic resistance against the Spanish army – the Spaniards occupied the lowlands in those days. Everywhere where the Spaniards got kicked out the Catholic possessions were confiscated and put to good use, like harbouring the university.
Proud family!
What to do when on leave in the Netherlands? Visit other people on leave and be homesick. Andre & Tears hopped over to Leiden and in our boat for the one thing you can’t do in Botswana: boating & floating in the canals. We also had rookworst, ontbijtkoek, and other Dutch goodies for lunch of course.
This is how you first see our house when we fetch you from the railway station by boat.
Time to fulfil a long-time wish: a decent ceiling in the master bedroom. The old ceiling was ugly but liveable until a severe leakage ruined part of it. By now we demolished the old ceiling and the older old one. To make a really nice new ceiling we’ll hire professionals!
Like every year the meerkoet got a nest packed with little ones in our floating flower arrangement. And like every year the babies disappear quickly because the seagulls, and maybe the occasional rat, love those tiny snacks.
It’s a good year for the roses!
Killing time between our lunch and our dinner appointment by ‘doing’ the Albert Cuyp market in Amsterdam. It’s a great afternoon out, with good opportunities for plesent shopping.
The northwest of Holland has villages with these huge old warehouses & factories for Dutch cheese, paper, grain, and etcetera.
Some of the typical Zaanse houses survived.
And why did we go there? Typical again: to loiter with friends and their pets, and enjoy a delicious dinner (fresh asparagus yeah!)
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