I AM“naughty”sterdam………

………Amsterdam has a reputation which is widely known and so the beauty and ease of the place was a little unexpected. We had expected to be confronted by the “naughtier” side without having to actually ‘hunt’ for it. But, hunt for we had to, after checking out the art galleries and museums, of course! Well, our first ‘coffee shop’ was easy to find as it was just beside our hotel, but we didn’t go in!!!!!! Then we decided to look for the famous ‘red light’ district with the girls in the windows…….we walked around and around and for once Rod didn’t really like to ask for directions!!!! Then we finally stumbled across it and had only been a street away since we arrived. The girls were very young, very wholesome looking and could have been any of our daughters…….probably uni students we decided, to cheer ourselves up!! The euphemistic‘coffee shops’ were very obvious by their characteristic smell and the name usually had the words free, high, happy featured in it. They seem to attract large numbers of out of town ‘youth’ and the last night in our hotel we were woken up in the early hours by a group of German ‘boys’ who had obviously had a good night and were laughing uproariously at everything and nothing, they weren’t quite so amusing at breakfast!!!!………. Sarah, Alan & Molly arrive on Saturday, we heard our first cuckoo this morning and France is beckoning again next month…..we left NZ a year ago on Sunday and while we miss you all tremendously…we enjoy what we are doing…..

I AMsterdam..part 2……

Does “flat” = “zero fat”??????........…..as you know Holland is incredibly flat and so the cities are a cyclists heaven….not only the terrain, but thoughtfully, the city fathers have designed the cities for ease of transportation i.e. bicycling. The roads have tramtracks down the middle, a space for cars (not that many), then a space for cyclists (heaps) and then a footpath. There are huge parking buildings – just for commuter’s bikes. It’s great …….even our Sera (who is living in a village outside Leiden….mentioned a few weeks ago “when I get my bike”!!!!). The bikes are brilliant, not the scary racing sort where you have to hunch over handlebars with millions of gears to change and multiple brakes and stuff. Lovely big comfy bikes where you sit upright and a brake you work with the pedals – front wards for moving forward, backwards to stop – what could be simpler? – I’d love to ride one. We opted not to because it’s all driving on the other side and we were even hopeless walking, looking the wrong way and stepping out (in front of bikes usually). While all the bikes are the same style essentially, some have wheelbarrow things in front to put the family and shopping in, some have baby seats and child seats, some even have a little bike in front where the child can ride and pedal and hold onto handlebars, but steered by the parent behind. We saw multiple decorations and colours, but all the same big comfy shape. We saw cool dudes, geeky dudes, grannies, kids, girls in their high heels and office clothes, men in their work suits, workmen in their overalls; everybody you could imagine rides a bike!!! We saw one overweight person in 3 days in Amsterdam (probably a visitor from Hawkes Bay!)………. we are talking about a country of people that have copious amounts of bread, cakes, cheese, ham and hard boiled eggs – and that’s just for breakfast!!! I wonder if the city fathers in their thoughtfulness were aware of the health benefits of what they were doing…….mmmm! Didn’t see a single gym, but then why would you???
Amsterdam to be continued………

I AMsterdam……..(part 1)…..

…….sometimes 3 days feels like 3 weeks and after spending a couple of days in Amsterdam we feel as if we have been away for ages. Living in England is like having the keys to a very large sweet shop. Whenever we have more than a couple of days up our sleeve the big decision is “where shall we go????” Sera is now living in Holland so we decided to visit Amsterdam and catch up with her……that didn’t happen…. she went off to Spain with her employers!!! Anyway the good thing is, without that incentive, we probably would have opted for somewhere supposedly more exotic and postponed visiting one of the coolest, funkiest, easiest places to be in …40 minutes by air from here……….
We knew Amsterdam was a bit ‘naughty’ (more about that later), and we knew there were a few canals, BUT it’s gorgeous….. canals everywhere, walking is a breeze (Holland is sooooo flat), the architecture is beautiful and 37 museums (if you like that sort of thing)….we “did” the Van Gogh Museum, Riksmuseum and the rest of the time, wandered around with silly grins on our faces, trying not to get run down by cyclists (more about that later…). Everybody spoke English and was incredibly helpful…to be continued xxxxxx

Life as a servant continued………..

……has it’s up’s a downs and we are still very much strangers in a strange land. The class structure here never fails to astound us and we are constantly faced with this in many subtle ways.
We have had three luncheon parties this week and we have been reminded of what servants are about – they serve!!! Now food and presentation is very important to me, so I unwittingly suggested that, with the intention of bringing ‘hot, visually interesting’ food to the guests, that I plate each course in the kitchen and then bring them to the table. (As happens in restaurant?) I was told…. “NO! NO! NO!….that won’t do at all! What an insult to our guests!!! – they MUST be served at the table!” Standing at somebody’s elbow, like Mr & Mrs Jeeves, waiting for a gap in the conversation to plop food on someone’s plate is not our idea of fun……but it does have it’s upside – we hear the most interestingly ‘classified’ snippets of conversation. It’s astonishing being so invisible. However, that is the small price we pay to live alongside the aristocracy in Britain, in park like surroundings, with the use of a tennis court, a swimming pool, a games room and to drive the BMW (which we are probably about on a par with to our employer)…… We are very useful, a nice symbol of wealth, but unlike the BMW we take time off and are reluctant to be at our employer’s beck and call 24/7 as much as he would like us to be ……we figure 12 hours a day – 5 days a week is a good deal for him. He begs to differ – “What!!!” he says, when it comes to the end of our working week “Off again – damn! More deprivation!!!” That’s a compliment!!!!!…….. With that in mind off to Amsterdam in two days ……………miss you all heaps and wish you were here xxxxxx

Badgers, moles and other jungle creatures………

…….. We’ve mentioned before about how living here is like living in the “Wind in the Willows”. One of the locals had explained to us that the badgers were preparing to give birth and so were changing their bedding each night. We had seen evidence of this during the day as we walk past the setts.
Now, one of the ‘badger setts’ on our estate, is huge, it covers a hillock and has masses of entrances with extra entrance holes up to 20 or 30 metres away. We were very surprised to learn that in this condominium type affair (that we call ‘badger city’) there are only about four badgers in residence. We were equally surprised to learn, from the ‘mole man’ (not the skin variety that we are accustomed to), that our present mole infestation, that covers an area of about 2 - 3 acres with little mole hills every couple of feet, is the work of about 3 or 4 moles!!! You never get to see moles above ground, but the other night we decided to go down to the ‘badger sett’ and observe the badgers as it got dark. Badgers are very, very, shy, but if you are lucky and they don’t smell you, you can watch them. So we went down early “sans perfume” and waited. On the way to the sett, we met “Ratty” from W in the W. Ratty is actually a vole and was very cute, his home is the first photo and if you look very carefully you can just see him. We positioned our selves in the hedgerow and after about ½ an hour we had become part of the surroundings and the rabbits and foxes started appearing, but no badgers. About 20 minutes after we’d seen our last fox, I noticed something watching us from within the hedgerow about 15 metres away, and then it came out and stood in the field watching us. We both signaled to each other “what the……..!!!!!”
And with that it bounded across the field out of sight. We had just seen what looked like a lynx, but it was black with a very long tail. “Nobody’s going to believe this!!!!” we decided……but a search on the internet showed ‘panther’ sightings covering a huge radius of about 40 miles. Mmmm…..so the next day we mentioned it tentatively to the other staff, one had seen it in the woods, the others think it’s fanciful…but those of us that have seen it………. we know what we saw…………….
p.s We didn’t see any badgers!!!

What a difference a day makes………

……….all week the locals have been saying “Arrr…it’s gonna snow ‘n Sundee”. We have been having the most glorious 7 sunny days of 13-14° - “Snow on Sunday??????? Really???” So on Friday, one of the drivers came in and said “Are ya ready for the snow on the weekend?” Thinking he was just making conversation about the weather as people do, I said, “do you really think it will snow?” Sniggering up my sleeve!
He said “Oh, yeah…it’ll snow.” Now I had been scornful about this ‘snow on the weekend’ trip all week. We have a four day forecast on our homepage with no mention of snow. Sure the temperatures were going to drop a bit, but snow?……not a chance!
“I don’t think it’ll snow” I said to Mick. “Want a bet?” said he. So we ended up having a £5 bet ($12.63 in real money), and shook on it. “I think, I’ve done my dough” say’s he!!! “I think so too” thought I. All yesterday, I kept thinking “snow, shmow”!!!!! It was hardly even cold!
This morning, it was very quiet when we woke up, we pulled back the curtains and sure enough……thick, glorious snow!!!!! Because I never win bets - I feel I’m the one completely responsible for it!!!!! AND it’s worth every penny – off to play in it for a while…….lots of love xxxxxx