100 of 10 - Day 22 - Yorkshire Moors

Had a little break from the 100 of 10 series (as well as all other blogging), so to start it up again, this was taken during a bikeride across the Yorkshire Moors. Beautiful wild moors, we love you so. :)  

100 of 10 - Day 21 - Familiar Views

A familiar sight from my childhood -  the view out of the window from my dad's house of the Greek chapel at the top of the hill. It's quite a romantic story that is behind it - apparently it was built as a monument to a Russian princess who died very young, in childbirth, while living in Wiesbaden (which was a a popular 19th century destination for Russian nobility because of its medicinal hot springs. The old casino in Wiesbaden was one of the places Dostoevski frequented and Wiesbaden later served as one of the inspirations for his famous novel 'The Gambler'.

100 of 10 - Day 20 - Above the Clouds

I'm in Germany right now, to visit my family there. Arrived last night, so had no chance to upload anything, so here you go - my view from above the clouds. I've not been on a plane for a long time, since the boys we usually tend to drive everywhere, so it all felt very strange. It also feels very strange to  be here, in the house I grew up in, by myself, without any kids. It's a bit too quiet, and I'm not used to all this down-time. I (almost) felt bored for a while there, earlier, so I went to chat to my dad. Because of all the chatting we forgot to start cooking early enough for all the people we had coming tonight, so there was a lot of rushing around and frantically chopping vegetables so it all felt a lot more normal then. ;) 

Clearly I've forgotten how to relax and do nothing!

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100 of 10 - Day 19 - Biking #2

The boys, with the help of some D and one of his biking mates, extended the mini-bike track in the  back garden. Hey, who needs lawn anyway? 

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100 of 10 - Day 16 - Leeds Urban Bike Park

Another day biking, another injury...

We went to the Leeds Urban Bike Park today. It's a brilliant place, full of mountain bike and BMX trails for different skill levels, with a little bike repair shop and a pretty nice cafe so you can treat yourself to bacon buns and nice cakes when you've exhausted yourself on the trails. 

We obviously had yet another injury - boy #1 had a pretty big crash on one of the downhill tracks, scraped his arm and bruised his side, but it was still a fun day out, and it's so good to see him able to actually do these things. Even seeing him be active enough to have accidents like this feels oddly right and normal after 2 years of enforced inactivity. I'm so hoping it will continue.

100 of 10 - Day 15 - Mess

Will you look at this messy still-life with cat? We are having a very lazy home-day, much needed after the past few days, which had quite a bit of activity, and were very sociable. The boys have mainly been lying on the sofa, playing on various devices, though this sloth-like existence was briefly interrupted earlier by a bit of playing in the pottery shed and some messy throwing on the pottery wheel. 

I suppose I should really not show all the mess we are living in today, it really doesn't make for a very pretty photograph, but it does reflect the theme of 'life' so perfectly at this particular moment in time. In addition, it does feature Molly, and we are so very happy that she is accepting that we are back. Every time we go on holiday Molly disappears and last time we were away she didn't come home for a full week after - we were walking up and down the roads in our village, hoping to hear her cry out because we were worried that she might be locked in someone's garage. After a week of fretting she just walked in, slightly grumpy and bossy as ever. 

With that past experience we were so glad to see her walk in a mere two days after our return from holiday. The first night she only stayed for a couple of hours before disappearing again, but the following evening she came back again, and since then she's been spending more time in the house. In her own very assertive and stubborn way she has been making her displeasure at our desertion felt by crying at us a lot and lying in the most impossible places - a few minutes after this picture was taken she stretched and in doing so pushed half the clutter on the table down onto the floor. Still, at least she's safe and home! :)

PS: Sorry for missing another day yesterday - it's hard work, this holiday thing!

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100 of 10 - Day 14 - Sunhat

 I'm sorry, but I'm cheating a bit with this one. I simply didn't get round to taking a proper picture yesterday or today and I'm absolutely shattered after a very busy (but fun busy, so it's OK!) day, so today my 100 of 10 picture is my nearly completed Sun Hat WIP. I ordered some boning and crocheted around it all around the hat. I'm still in two minds about it. The pattern asked for hat wire but I couldn't find any, and then I thought the boning might be better because I can scrunch the hat up to take it with me in my bag, etc, which I'm guessing would be a bit of an issue with wire, but it doesn't quite fit the way I envisioned it. It's not bad, but... well, I'll finish the hat band and then take a few proper pictures so you can see.

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100 of 10 - Day 13 - Quiet Moment

Still catching up on stuff after our holiday so another little pic from the journey back. The window on the ferry is always a popular spot to sit quietly for a minute. 

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100 of 10 - Day 12 - Sand Sculptures

We were travelling yesterday and arrived home today to a defrosted fridge and freezer, courtesy of a power cut so I'm a little behind with these posts. This is from yesterday, our very last day on the beautiful Noordwijk beach. The boys spent the morning making elaborate sand sculptures out of dripped sand. They looked strange and kind of magical - like fairy tale structures. 

100 of 10 - Day 11 - Lost Property Tree

D and I headed out tonight for a meal out on our very last day here in beautiful Noordwijk. We went a little further towards the other end of the beach to try out one of the beach pavillions there, and came across this - it's a 'Lost Property Tree'. As far as I can tell any lost property found on the beach is hung on the branches. How cute is that?! 

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Holiday Update #3

Our holiday is slowly drawing to a close, so I thought another update was in order. 

After the heat wave broke a few days ago temperatures have been far more tolerable, with most days around 25 degrees, which, for me at least, is quite a nice temperature - enough to not be cold in shorts and a light shirt, even when in the shade, yet not so hot you don't know what to do with yourself. My stepmom sent me a message today, and apparently temperatures near Frankfurt have been around 39 degrees for a few days now. My folks are in Wiesbaden, which always has a pretty oppressive kind of heat in the summer because of it's strange situatedness between the Rhine on one side, and the mountainrange of the Taunus on the other, so weather tends to sort of get 'trapped' in there, and it  gets very humid and unpleasant. I'm feeling really sorry for them, especially as they had been planning to come and see us for about a week but then had to cancel because of an awkwardly scheduled op - having to recover in this heat must be particularly awful.

For us, the slightly lower temperatures have meant a lot more activity, which has been nice after the enforced inactivity. A few days ago we went to a mountain bike trail that D and boy #1, who both have a bad case of mountain bike obsession, had discovered. It was a 30 minute drive away but there was a nice cafe for grandma and me to set up camp while the boys enthusiastically pushed their bikes up the hill, rode down, and pushed them up again. I occasionally followed them up the trail to take some shots, and I have to say it looked pretty good fun. 

For lunch we took our sandwiches up the hill, where we found a huge climbing wall and a bizarre structure that none of us could quite make sense of. You may have seen a picture of it that I posted as part of my 100 of 10 series, but here are a few more shots.

I assume it might be some kind of viewing platform? There are stairs going up through the middle of the two large concrete disks, and there are additional more shallow steps going up the sides on top of the rubble. We didn't go up because it was quite a way and we had the bike and the picnic, but if it is a viewing platform, wouldn't the large concrete discs partially obscure the view!? I don't know... It  looked fun though - a bit like part of an alien space ship that got buried in the hill. 

The day after boy #1 needed to rest so we decided that we should have a calmer kind of a day. Boy #2 was determined to go to a 'boot camp' we had spotted not far from us, so we decided to have a look because there were benches where boy #1 would be able to rest should he need to, and it since it wasn't more than 5 minutes bike ride away and you pay for an hour only, it wouldn't be a big outing.

It was pretty good fun. If anyone has ever watched Ninja Warrior on TV, this is the kind of place that people who go on the programme might train. The guy who owned it (who wouldn't have looked out of place on Ninja Warriors himself) said he'd  built the entire course himself, and he proudly told us that it's the biggest boot camp in the Netherlands and that the Dutch team had come to train there. 

It was pretty easy-going. We paid and off we went. He didn't even stick around, just told us to pull the gate shut behind us when we were ready to leave. I have to say, I'm loving the lack of red tape and the much more easy-going attitude here...

The boys obviously honed in on the one really manky pool in there. Seriously, the water in that pond was absolutely rank, and they obviously did fall in - thankfully not head-first, though, and only up to their knees, but still... Showers were in order after we made it back!!

Yesterday we finally, FINALLY, made it to Amsterdam. I've never been (well, I might have been when I was 10 or 11, but I have no actual recollection of this so it doesn't count). I knew that due to boy #1's ME we wouldn't be able to do much, but just soaking up the atmosphere for a while was such fun. Our main pursuit was finding an art supply shop, carefully researched on the internet before the holiday, where the boys would be able to see and buy their much-coveted Copic Markers. These are very expensive alcohol-based markers for illustration, and boy #1 in particular loves them (though he so far only had one and a bunch of knock-off cheaper markers). This mission was achieved, as was a little wander around town, so everyone was happy, although, shock! horror! I didn't make it to the yarn shop I'd picked out, so no souvenir yarn!! This has never happened and it will likely take me a while to get over the shock. :) 

How cute is this entrance with the roses and that little gate?

Van Beek art supplies

How amazing is this train?! It's a double-decker? I'd never seen one like that!

I do miss big cities at times. It's not so much that I really need to live in a city anymore, I'm more than happy in our little village, but I sometimes need my big city fix. I guess it brings back memories of studying in Munich...  If we come back here next year I may plan in a little trip to Amsterdam just for myself so I can explore a little further. 

In knitting-related news, I've got as far as I can with my sun hat so I'm now working on my mohair cowl, which is growing quite nicely. 

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100 of 10 - Day 9 - Copic Marker Heaven

The one and only reason for our boys to visit Amsterdam - Copic Markers from Van Beek Art Supplies. 

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100 of 10 - Day 8 - Bird Boxes

We encountered this little collection of bird boxes on our way home from the Noordwijk Bootcamp today and they caught my eye because they had clearly been painted by children. They looked very sweet, up in that tree. 

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100 of 10 - Day 7 - Structure & Symmetry

We encountered this bizarre and imposing structure yesterday when we drove to the mountain bike track. Up on the hill, behind the track, was a large climbing wall. A bit to the left was... this. It's the strangest thing, and I'll post more pictures of it when I construct my next holiday update, but as this is a one picture kind of post I leave you with the strange symmetry of this structure. 

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Holiday update... Oh, and 100 of 10 of course (Day 6 - Gull)

We are really getting into the holiday groove here. 

It always takes us a few days, and then of course it's been so hot for the past few days, and that resulted in a whole lot of lethargy and inactivity. For the past two days we were pretty much holed up at home during the day and only ventured out in the morning and the evening hours. 37 degrees is just a little too much to do much, and even going to the beach at mid-day seemed out of the question when temperatures were this high. 

As a result I've felt a bit cooped up, and I also had the usual pangs of guilt over the boys' screen time, but it was so hot that I couldn't really ask them to go do anything else when all I was able to do was sit somewhere with a cold drink and read a few blog posts here and there. Boy #1, still struggling with ME, suffered particularly. He normally really enjoys drawing and it's his main low-energy activity besides his tablet, but with the heat he's just felt too tired and drained to do much other than watch YouTube videos. Not fantastic, and my parenting-guilt was at an all-time high, but sometimes you just have to live, you know? 

Despite the heat we've had a good time so far. I've got a lot further with my sun hat - just need to add a couple more rows and then need to get some hat wire to finish it.

 There have also been numerous beach trips with the boys in the mornings and evenings, either all together, or at times just in small groups with those interested and willing to get out, lots of ice cream at the lovely Italian ice cream cafe down at the beach promenade, even little trips to the supermarket have been made more enjoyable than the usual grocery shopping by the adventure of finding new and intriguing food stuffs. 

A few days ago I brought home a promising-looking tub labelled (to me at least) totally incomprehensibly with: "De Zeeuwsche Boerin" - De Beroemde Zeeuwse Keukenstroop. It's a pretty-looking tub, quite old-fashioned. It was in the same shelf with all the chocolate sprinkles and the jam and honey, so I knew it probably wasn't cod-liver oil or liver pate, or worse, some kind of household cleaner, but other than that I had no idea! We had an old family friend who lives in the Netherlands visiting that day, so I presented the tub to him and asked him if he could identify its contents. He explained that it's a syrup made from apples, which is traditionally produced in the Zeeland region further to the south. I've been eating the stuff on my bread rolls every morning since, it's lovely!! 

Grandma watched the kids for us one afternoon and despite the heat D and I cycled to the next village, Noordwijkerhoud, to visit the bike shop there because we had seen that they had old ex-rental bikes for sale. It's a cute little place and we stopped for some iced tea at the market square.

The bike shop visit was successful too - I'm now the proud owner of my own Holland bike - meet Paula, my new ride! 

I've also done a bit of exploring. You might have seen my previous 100 of 10 photography post, but I think I've found Noordwijk's haunted mansion, or rather, haunted hotel. It's all boarded up and it looks very mysterious - it sits in a row of immaculate and quite posh properties right by the beach and it's clearly been empty for a long time. I wonder what happened and why nobody has bought it? It was a good photo opportunity anyway.

  

Last night the heatwave finally broke with a storm and in the early hours of the morning we had thunder and lightning and a lot of rain. By noon today the skies cleared again, but it's remained in the low twenties and it's been as windy as you'd expect it to be at the North Sea coast. We took the opportunity to head out on our bikes for a bit, as a family. This coast line is so beautiful - endless wide beaches, dunes, and I'm so in love with all the bicycle paths everywhere. I really love that we can head out with the kids and don't have to be terrified to go on a road with them, and the pace of life that comes with cycling everywhere is so much nicer than all that racing around in the car that we normally have. 

After a picnic lunch at a beach on the way D headed back with boy #1 and boy #2, who were both tired, and I continued on for a while with boy #3, who is always ready to do a bit more or go a bit further. 

Seriously, that boy has so much energy - even during the really hot last few days, when we were all just lying around, he was playing football in the baking-hot courtyard and asking to play Frisbee!! 

We are planning a trip to a local mountain bike park tomorrow, and next week we are hoping to make it to Amsterdam and Le Hague for a few day trips. I can't wait! 

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100 of 10 - Day 6 - Haunted Mansion

A few days ago I discovered Noordwijk's haunted mansion. 

Well, haunted hotel, really, and I have no idea if it's haunted, obviously, but it certainly looks like it is. I stopped cycling and took photographs because it's truly creepy-looking, even more so because it's in an otherwise immaculate row of quite large and well-kept houses and apartment blocks. It really sticks out and I'd love to know why it's been empty for so long. It was a hotel, that much is obvious from the still present sign 'HOTEL SONNEVANCK' at the front, but it's obviously been empty for a good long while, judging by the state of disrepair and decay. 

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