Kerstmis

Het is bijna kerst, eerst nog even de verjaardag van oudste vieren die 21 jaar geleden op kerstavond werd geboren, ons geliefde kerstkindje. 3 weken te vroeg, en perfectionistisch als ik toen zeker nog was (als je kinderen hebt leer je sommige dingen los laten) stond ik weeen hebbend kerstkleden te strijken en de kerstboom op te tuigen. Want lange tijd heb ik het vol gehouden de boom pas op kerstavond op te zetten, zoals traditie was hier in Holland. Toen had ik ook altijd een wit met zilveren boom zoals mijn ouders en schoonouders nog steeds hebben. Maar tijden veranderen...

Mijn kroonluchter in de gang, groen en met heel veel hartjes. Veel liefde stuur ik ieders kant op, fijne kerstdagen met jullie geliefden.

Wel heb ik nog steeds de traditie in ere gehouden om echte kaarsjes te branden, hiervoor zoek ik dan ook altijd een goede kerstboom. Tegenwoordig vul ik het wel met kunstlichtjes aan, voor de rest van de dag, aangezien de kerstboomkaarsjes maar 1 1/2 uur branden.

Wel, de rijsttafel voor vanavond is gereed, we zijn met 15 man. Het wordt vast gezellig. Straks nog een paar boodschapjes halen, en maar hopen dat de kapper vandaag nog open is. En dan, veel plezier!!

Intruder

Last week we had a rather unpleasant surprise, an intruder payed us a visit. It was about 22.00 in the evening, G., youngest and me were sitting in the living room, talking and looking at the television.  Youngest had just cleaned the " cats toilet" "( a literal translation of the dutch word poezenbak, I haven't got a clue what the english word would be), and after some time he noticed that the kitchen door at the back of our house was open. And it isn't supposed to, to cold.  He called, G went to him, and they came to the conclusion someone had entered our home!! We were sitting there, just around the corner!! This is what catched their eye...

The stairs to the first floor  in our hallway. Normally 2 of my bags are hanging here. So this was stolen. Youngest was very frightened, a little bit shaking. What if this person was still in our house??  

In short, we called the police to report this, and they came immediately, to my surprise. And they took the time to write everything and one of them went outside with a flashlight to look if he could find something.

After 2 days they called us to tell my bags had been found with luckily enough my passport, drivers licence and so in it. But we still had to make arrangements for other things like new locks and keys, and car key.

I'm mostly shocked by the impertence of ths person, just to walk in our house while we were sitting there.

And now some other photo's, I love colours and candle light...

And so does my cat Loesje...

And these are some things I made inspired by Blogland...

These glass covers are very easy to make, just improvise.

In the meantime I'm crocheting a blanket for G's daughter, and this will be a big one, 2 x 2 meter.

Oh, and I do have to share this, my cat Zorro, while sleeping.  Due to the flashlight he opened his eyes a little....

And thanks for your nice comments, I appreciate it a lot. Groetjes, Gerda

Wool

After a very busy weekend in which I celebrated my 55th birthday I will share some things I made in the last months. I like to create all kind of things, and these are of the woolen kind. In the summer I dyed some merino wool, and in the last months I spinned it into yarn.

The middle one was a light grey merino before I dyed it, so the colours are rather dark. The 3 skeins exist of a 3 ply yarn, which in this case means I Navajo plied the yarn I spinned, to hold the colours together. The thickness will be for knitting on needles 3 1/2 or 4, (European size) I think . I don't know yet what I will make of it.
The skeins weight about 150 grams.

And than, underneath the skeins lies the blanket I crocheted in october. Boy, I did crochet a lot!!

I used a design  made by Drops, which I already used for making shawls with their sockwool Delight, which comes in nice colours. But this time I didn't want to think, just crochet, and I made this from a rather thin wool which I bought some years ago in England. It measures 1.80 x 1.30, a nice blanket to crawl in on the bench when it's cold outside. I used crochet needle 3.

And this is my spinning wheel, a majacraft with double threadle. A pleasure to spin on. On the moment I'm spinning with this colour...

 Very summery colours, and I think I will navajo ply it again, I like to ply this way and I like the result.
Have a nice week.

Two days

I've been away from this bog for a long time, didn't plan this. It's mostly due to the fact that oldest has been very ill, which even resulted in an admission to the hospital for over 2 weeks. I stayed a lot in Amsterdam. Anyway, everything is allright now.

Last weekend we had 2 very different days, with respect to the weather.

First saturday, a dreary and rainy day....

But we went out for a walk in the woods of Velhorst, an estate which is owned by Natuurmonumenten since 1972. This is a wellknown foundation here in Holland, since 1905,  which goal is to preserve nature in the Netherlands, in a sustainable way. Nature in Holland is too small and fragmented, which makes it difficult for plants and animals to survive. 

But it still is beautiful...

And I was looking for this house..........

 Oh no, the other one, in this one very lucky people already live...

The house above, I took a photo of the front and back, in the midst of the rain, is for rent. The house and surroundings are beautiful; if you walk one direction you enter the woods, and at the other side there are meadows. Stunning vieuws.  If only............

And sunday the sun was shining, the colours were bright and autumn was so much in the air, so we went for a walk on another estate, owned by Natuurmonumenten, nearby, Huis Verwolde. This house is very familiar to me, I often went there when I was camping with my children, in bygone summers. It was a good bike ride from the camping  for little legs.

The house itself was closed, a surprise, but we walked for some hours...

We were looking for one of the most famous trees of Holland, the large oak tree about which our beloved Annie M.G Schmidt made a nursery rhyme; about a family which lives in that tree. The large oak tree of Laren, which is supposed to bee the oldest tree, and the biggest one, in Holland.

We ended our walk with these vieuws, these stunning colours...

Groetjes, Gerda

Sallandse heuvelrug

It's been a while since my last post. I was so busy, and I avoided the computer, otherwise it should take to much time. Some 2 weeks ago I sat reading in our patio, with my reading classes, and something catched my eye. So I went to inspect the wooden parts of our house (reading glasses on my nose), the frames and doors, and I was shocked by the state of it. So we took our brushes and paint, and we painted, and painted......I don't like this work at all. We have made quite a progress, and so tomorrow we can take some days off to go to a  house near the Biesbosch.

Last week we took 1 day off, eldest was at home too, and we went to the Sallandse heuvelrug, the most hilly part of Holland nearby. This moraine originated some 150.000 thousand years ago, in the second last glacial peroid. This is the only place in Holland were moor games live. We didn't see any...

There's one place you have a beautiful vista,  far far away..

The moorland was gorgeous, when I see those purple colours I think of autumn. And autumn is in the air, allthough the weather is surprisingly good, warm. But you can feel it in the evening, and the light is different than in summer.

We walked around, not such a long time because we were rather late...

It's striking how often my boys walk in front of me, (I think it's because I take the pictures) ......

We ended the day having dinner in a nice restaurant, and it was delicious.......

Have a nice week you all, groetjes, Gerda

Baby blanket

After living for 20 years in Amsterdam I moved in may 1997 to a little city nearby, just me and my 2 boys; eldest was 5 and youngest was 6 months. We went to live in a collective housing project. The houses were build around a big garden, a beautiful place for children to play in, parties to celebrate, swimming in the summer, telling stories while sitting round the bonfire...I have good memories.
One of my neighbours was a girl of 12 years old, fond of eldest, and she adored youngest. She became my babysitter. When she grew up she went to live alone in one of the little apartments, build for one person. And when I left 5 years ago she, pregnant of her first child, came to live in my house. Next weekend I'm going to visit some friends, and I will pay her a visit too. She is pregnant of her third child now. I made a blanket for the new baby.
First I made a plan, yes, I sometimes do. My overall plan for this year is to knit and crochet only from my stash. I wanted to crochet granny squares of one colour. So I selected colours of cotton from which I was sure I had enough balls left....

These would be the main colours. And from other colours, selected at random, I would knit one square in each row, or something like that....

It was nice to crochet, I joined on the go, although I only crocheted the squares while it was so hot, and finished the blanket last weekend..

Zorro, our black cat, loved it too, see his feet...

And finished. This is the first time I made a kind of lacy border, and I love it. Most times I make solid ones.

I'm rather content with the result, I think my friend will love it too.

Groetjes, Gerda

Limburg

What's on a boys mind when we have the hottest days since 1994? Yes, ofcourse, winter, snow, snowboards. Eldest was, after doing a lot of research on the net,  searching on marktplaats (a second hand marketplace on internet, here in the Netherlands) for a secondhand snowboard and shoes. He had found one set in Limburg, but there would be a change the boats wouldn't fit, to small. And then he came across the sale section of a well known shop, also in Limburg near the indoor snowboarding place. So he had an idea, and presented it to me; the second hand snowboard would be perfect for youngest, who's going on winter sports camp with school in the end of december, the same time as eldest is going with his study friends.
And of we went, friday, for a 2 1/2 ours drive to the south of Limburg. My condition was that we had to go for a walk and picnic. We were lucky that it wasn't so hot yet.
First we went to Landgraaf, and when we arrived it was rather warm, so we fell out of the car and on the terrace of a pub. The most amazing sight was 6 boys sitting all packed up in their snowboard clothes. Okay, in the shadow, but still... It was almost 30 degrees outside. I know, on the snowboard arena it's cold.
Eldest was very happy with the board he bought, 50% cheaper because it was of last season.

And than we went to Epen, a little village were I stayed with G for some days 4 years ago.
Those typical timbered houses of Limburg...

And the most hilly landscape of the Netherlands...

We found little paths to walk..

We saw the typical cows of Limburg, and the usual black and white ones. Standing in the river....

Or looking for shadow...

And we walked besides the little river the Geul, which was flowing rather fast..

We found the most perfect place for a picnic, if only we did bring more than water...

When we arrived in Epen again we went looking for a picnic place, drove around a little bit, and found one under the trees....I had made some salads, it tasted delicious out in the woods.
And after a little visit to Slenaken we left for Roermond, were we bought the snowboard for youngest. The shoes fitted him very good. The man sold his equipment because he had a knee injury and couldn't go snowboarding anymore. He also had some clothes left, pants, jacket, cloves, and the boys could use that too. Last year they didn't go snowboarding at the same time, so they could use some things which belonged to the other. And now I had 2 very content kids, the man had a very good  equipment.

Later that evening, when we were home again, youngest came to sit besides me, and sad he had had a lovely day, and was very happy with the purchases.........

The weekend I made a effort to stay inside, it was to hot for me. On sunday I had to go to a birthday party, a half brother of my boys got 13.  I went early, and so did my ex parents in law;  it was nice to see them again. When I drove home it was HOT....even with the windows of the car opened it didn't cool down, the wind was hot too. I'm very happy the temperature is much better now, I can do things again....