Elsewhere and at other times

I’m the sort of person that goes to bed on holiday with the camera next to me, in case I wake up in the morning and see something I want to take a picture of. You never know what you might wake up seeing.

Z and D having a little early morning chat. We were surprisingly fast for four people to get out of the house and on our way.

Tourist pic time!

A managed to prop her phone up on Z’s bike so we could all be in the picture - in front of the windmill. Came out really good!

I wanted to repeat the perfect Sunday (on a Sunday again - nice!) so off we cycled to Het Schoolhuis in Holysloot for some lunch.

Got the best table in the garden. Thanks Z for the pic :0)

After lunch we picked out a scenic spot and meditated together. One of my favourite memories of the whole trip.

We then went for a little walk in the ‘hood. D & A spotted

this guy, before we did.

Time to cycle back into town.

This man caught my eye, and clocked me taking his pic, and I made sure I smiled at him, because that’s what a polite person does. Makes for a nice shared moment rather than being a picture taking robot that just continues on without acknowledging the other person involved.

Had to stop and take another picture on Haarlemmerstraat, this time of this building that looked heavily influenced by Alphonse Mucha.

See what happens when you smile and take pictures of strangers? You get smiled at back.

Walking through Westerpark this caught my eye. Kudos to anyone who bothers to bring a hammock to a park.

Our destination? Rainarai of course. We tried to dent the massive portions as much as we could, and delicious as usual it was too. I know it looks like A is ‘gramming’ here, but she isn’t. Not everyone carries a big camera innit.

And on the way home we had to stop and get off our bikes to look at the incredible full moon. Alas, this lady doesn't travel with a zoom, but take my word for it, it was huge.

On the Monday morning the peonies that Z had bought had opened up; I’ve never seen peonies this colour in the UK.

This was the day that we went to the Rijks, and moseying around the Jordaan afterwards we had a nosy in this empty house. Some jammy sod must’ve moved in there by now.

While we’re looking at houses, let’s look at some more. These are at the edge of the Red Light district, in fact just around the corner from Ons Lieve Heer.

I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve been to Amsterdam by now, but I always do a little research before I go, and somewhere I came across pictures of this bar, In’t Aepjen. Amsterdam’s bruin cafés (pubs) have never really been on my radar before, but I remember walking past one that looked really cosy last time me and Oomoo where there (in fact the interior of it inspired me to get rid of our white walls at home), and thinking that I’d really like to go to one one day. Well, child free this time round we went, and lovely it was too. It was very small, but not packed and loud like a pub can be, and we tried some jenever for the first time, which gets served all the way to the top of the glass, like in the picture to the left. You then have to kind of bow into the glass to have your first sip. Fun!

D saying something… surprising/shocking? Whatever it was I missed out, but it was worth it. Love the reactions.

We only stayed for one drink, and this was what met us as we came out. ‘Hope for another life’ it says, according to Google Translate. Maybe that is what it says - but I don’t trust GT.

These guys obviously didn't stop at one drink. Maybe they were hoping for another life.

D, on the Eurostar, on the way home. So there you go, that was our girls’ trip to the Amsterdamsch, something we dreamt up last summer, when we saw A for the first time since all the lockdowns, and wanted to make up for lost time. Having this trip as something to look forward to, all the way back then, was invaluable. I hope we’ll do plenty more of them.

A perfect Sunday

One sunny Sunday in Amsterdam we cycled northwards, away from the dream house.

It didn’t take long before the architecture changed. Seems to me I’m yet to see an ugly building in Amsterdam. There must be some somewhere?

And sometimes they come in all kinds of sizes, which is very cute.

Fellow winter swimmer posing for me as we cycled past.

I can’t remember how long the bike ride took, maybe 4o mins at a gentle pace, and our destination was Het Schoolhuis (The Schoolhouse. See! Dutch is basically a third English, a third Swedish and a third Dutch. Perfect for me to learn) for a bit of lunch. I had some amazing creamy cake concoction for afters, and it was so delicious I ordered another portion - something I’ve never done before. Still, all that cycling seems to do something; we ate an insane amount of sugar for the two weeks we were in Amsterdam (so much so that my teeth hurt by the time we got back home, and I couldn’t stomach anything sweet for another couple of weeks) but! I didn’t put any weight on.

Ahh, here I go with my random pictures again. After we’d finished eating we went for a short wander in the neighbourhood, and for some reason we entered the local tiny church, which was being used as a venue for an art presentation that an artist was doing later in the day. There was some nice stuff there, but for some strange reason all I took a picture of was the floor. Sometimes my brain works in mysterious ways.

Minutes away from the church we got to the water, and my shadow might have been a tiny bit tempted to push Z in the water. But most probably it just wanted to be in the shot.

Leaf it out.

Can’t believe how blue the sky was. Not a single cloud all day.

We then hopped back on the bikes and cycled homewards, past these perfectly single striped cows

snd these two, picnicing, having taken out the car seat so they could sit on it whilst they ate. Clever.

The fields were full of birds (I’ve never seen so many in one place before) and they must’ve all been taking a break on their long journey south. Some seemed to be heading that way here though (if you’re looking at this on your phone you might need to zoom in a bit).

Agh, so pretty.

Coming back through the same trees as in the first picture, but with the sun in a different place and going the other way.

And just like that, we were back in the city again. I keep thinking about this Sunday every now again - it really was perfect in every way. Sun out and riding bikes. Good food, good friends, good times, so easily taken for granted. What a flippin’ crazy world we live in, where life now continues as normal for some of us, whilst others have had theirs turned into a living nightmare in the space of just a few days.