Off to Holland again this year. We haven't been for a few years and haven't seen our friends for ages.
On the Eurostar.
Chips in Brussels while waiting for our friend to pick us up.
In my friends' cosy house. Those tables are standing tables, something that lots of people have at parties. Encourages standing around and chatting!
The evening was fun as always, with lots of nice food. On New Years day we went for a long walk to a restaurant near the woods which has a waterwheel on the side. It was a lovely day, perfect for a a walk. The village where my friends live is very small and very well cared for. Every house is different, and many have beautiful outside decorations for Christmas.
I was impressed by this hedge. It must be quite a challenge to keep it trimmed.
The black and white decorated shutters were on a number of houses.
The gardens are mostly very formal and structured. Quite a few had espaliered trees like this one.
I love this combination of Monkey Puzzle tree and topiary.
The pink, red, greens and greys in this garden look good. The weather has been very mild there as at home so the roses were still flowering.
This house had six trees in front of it, all decorated with gold bows, as were the box hedges.
A man and his cat, on the way to see the donkeys.
This must be the home of a designer.
A friendly horse-let me stroke his nose.
Through the woods.
The waterwheel.
A big mug of hot chocolate and some Jagermeister. A good way to finish a walk.
3 comments:
what a lovely break to enter another culture.We have been to Amsterdam several times.We love the art galleries but when our children were quite small we did house swaps with a Dutch family.They thought it was great coming to North Wales ,all those mountains.We lived at the bottom of a hill then and the Dutch children loved zooming down this hill on our kid's bikes.The neighbours were holding their breath!!
Looks like a lovely time was had. Great photos! The hedge pic made me smile as we have just driven home from having lunch out and Mr S showed me a house just around the corner from us where a fake front garden hedge has been installed! It's immaculately trimmed;-) Whatever are thing coming to! :-) Ros
It's interesting to see something of Holland that's NOT Amsterdam. I wonder if that guy was walking his cat, or is it just a neighbourhood cat tagging along?
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