Eat me and drink me

Yesterday I had a lovely surprise. Nico organised a pseudo baby shower for me with the help of my girlfriends. They chose the Sanderson Hotel for a mad hatter tea party. (When I say pseudo I mean it was just the right amount of baby shower topics, but a perfect gesture to celebrate the new arrival).

It was a really nice gesture and I was incredibly touched by it.

So nice to have such lovely friends... After a drink at the long bar, we moved into the sunny patio for our afternoon tea. A range of sandwiches, cakes and drinks.

The Royal Wedding

While we were away in Amsterdam, on 29th April 2011, the wedding of William and Kate took place in London. I guess I should comment a bit about it as it seems to have been a very big deal for an estimated 2 billion people watching it's coverage live on tv.

She had a beautiful dress and seemed very comfortable with all the attention. William seemed a bit more nervous or reserved, but nevertheless happy.

Ines loved watching the highlights in the evening and wondered very seriously why we were not invited and why did those little girls get to be flower girls and not her. Cute...

Although it seemed that not everyone got excited about this wedding... For republicans everywhere Lydia Leith had an essential accessory.

happy days in Amsterdam

Although we did miss the festivities of the royal wedding in London, we got a great bank holiday weekend in Amsterdam. We'll definitely do it again when baby no2 is born. And next time, we will cycle!

Alex and Hester's neighbour was nice enough to let us borrow his little boat for a tour of the Jordaan quarter. Thanks!

My new clogs! I can even tapdance in them... I'll show them to you once I've decorated them.

learning new skills every day...
Trees shedding petals throughout the weekend. Glorious!

More home echange interiors

Home exchange in Amsterdam

This is the lovely home of our Dutch home exchange. It is so nicely decorated, we really felt like staying there... Ines was ready to move in!

Koninginnedag

Or the Dutch Queen's birthday as it is known in english. I have to say that the dutch really know how to throw a village fete. We hung out in our neighbourhood all day and at the end of our street (Pytagorastraat) was the best family outing ever. A giant car boot sale / declutter / party. Lots of things to do, eat, drink and buy for peanuts.

And the weather was glorious. We ended the evening by inviting our friends Alex and Hester (and some of their friends) back to ours for a great Indonesian take away recommended by our hostess.

More Amsterdam

More bits of amsterdam!

Amsterdam

Some photos of things in Amsterdam while we were out and about.

Home of clogs

We went to this strange place near Amsterdam called Zaanstad that is a reconstruction of what a 16th century town would have been along canals. They moved many buildings into this large area and recreated a typical town with all trades: clogmaker, windmills, cheese makers...

Strange place but worth a visit. Ines enjoyed the clog factory most of all I think. And although I resisted the urge to buy a pair of clogs, we gave into Ines' need to own a pair.