Kinderdijk

Last weekend, together with a few of my colleagues and a group of 70 students, we braved the absolutely freezing weather conditions to go and visit Kinderdijk, a beautiful Unesco protected area with nineteen magnificent windmills.

Most of my students arrived in the Netherlands from Australia just a few weeks ago, and the weather difference between what they left behind and what they've been faced with over here in the last few days/weeks couldn't really be any more extreme. A few of them actually came to me, while we were walking from one windmill to another, with a worried look on their face to let me know that they believed they might loose a toe or two to the cold or at least get serious frost bite. I smiled, thinking it was a silly joke, but quickly realised no one was laughing. They were genuinely worried. And so we snapped a few photos very quickly and hopped inside the visitors' center to go and watch a video about it all in a slightly warmer environment! 

P.S. I still have one or two wedding posts to show you. Soon!

On the frozen pond

Freezing weather

It's been incredibly cold over here lately, with temperatures staying well below 0 degrees Celsius day and night. We put on our warmest clothes and went for a walk in the sun yesterday afternoon, to see the frozen pond in the park and pay a visit to the animals who live there. We gave little branches and dried leaves found on the ground to the deers and goats - they loved them! The geese and pigeons were a bit disappointed that we didn't have anything for them though.
Photo 5 is a little river in the park, in the process of freezing over. Isn't the pattern just beautiful?

Hyacints in bloom

These pretty little things have started blooming and smell delicious!

Hyacints

Homemade snowflakes

Still no snow over here. So here are my semi-tacky plastic snowflakes!

:-)

I saw some of these online a little while ago, but I don't remember where...
It takes some dexterity to place the little Hama beads in the right place on the spiky board, and some imagination to create numerous different shapes that will actually stick together, but it was a lot of fun and I really like the result.

If you wanted to try it out but didn't feel like making up the shapes yourself (which is half of the fun if you ask me, but everyone is different), you could look at the models provided here and here (or you could of course also just copy the ones I've made above. Some of them are sturdier than other, and it was a bit of a challenge sometimes to get them off the prickly board, but they all ended up holding just fine!).
I saw transparent Hama beads at the toy store. And glow in the dark ones. Pretty tempting!!

P.S. I think I'll need different colours anyways to be able to make something like this and like this.

Floating in the cold sunset

Just like a soap bubble.

From cold to warm

We are about to go from very cold to very warm... I can't wait!



♥ one big kiss to Teresa

Sun, beautiful sun

I had a day off today.
I spent it sleeping in, finishing our new wardrobe (and folding tons of clothes, to then arrange them neatly in there), watching a bit of Desperate Housewives and enjoying the beautifully sunny light our apartment was bathed in all day long. It's so good to see some sun again after months of grey skies...! And as you can see above, the sun today was majestic all the way to the last little bit... so nice!

Busy!

Here are two shots of our walk on Sunday. I'm super-duper busy, and it won't stop until we're on the plane for Australia in a bit less than three weeks. No days off until then but some fun times with the group of students I'm currently in charge of. Yey!

Snow turns to ice

I took these photos on my way to work before the holidays, when snow was still falling from the sky. These days there isn't any fresh snow anymore, but just big blocks and bumpy mounds of ice everywhere. It makes walking to the grocery store, or cycling to work, quite an adventure!

Warm, thick wool

It's crazy how quickly and fundamentally the weather can change: yesterday it was summer. The sun was shining, it was warm, and we spent the afternoon outdoors, lying in the sun. Today however is definitely autumn. The weather switched drastically overnight, and we've seen pretty much nothing but rain, dark clouds and icy winds.
This type of weather really makes me long for warm, cosy knitted stuff. Just like these.

Photo credits:
Urchin poufs - Super thick infinity scarf - Megadoily - Knitted baskets

Sunday winter walk