Sprookjesbos

About an hour’s drive from Antwerp you will find Efteling, a beautiful theme park based around the fairytales or sprookjes of the Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Andersen and Charles Perrault. Opened in 1952, Efteling is one of the oldest theme parks in the world. We’d been told that we couldn’t leave Belgium without making a visit, so on Saturday we spent a wonderful day exploring the world of fairytales.

The sprookjesboom or fairytale tree. He is a wise old oak who tells stories about the other inhabitants of the fairytale forest.

Efteling began it’s life as a fairytale forest where ten fairytales had been brought to life. Over time it has grown into a full sized theme park with a range of rides and attractions, but it is the sprookjesbos which is the most beautiful and unique part of the park.

The witch ascending to the top of the tower via Rapunzel’s hair.

Edie posing in the sprookjesbos.

The rather well-endowed Little Mermaid.

Gingerbread house from Hansel and Gretel.

Tom Thumb attempting to steal the giant’s boots. He is known here as Klein Duimpje.

This castle is home to Snow White’s evil stepmother – complete with talking magic mirror!

The flying Fakir on his magic carpet.

As well as exploring the Sprookjesbos, we went on lots of rides. Our favourite was the Droomvlucht or Dreamflight ride, where we flew through a dream world of forests, fairies, castles and trolls.

Singing fairies in the Droomvlucht.

They were singing and swinging.

A dreamlike fairy world – so beautiful.

If you’d like to see many more Efteling pics, click on the link to my Flickr photos. We thoroughly enjoyed our day – we’ve been to a few theme parks now but have never stayed right until closing time as we did at Efteling. We can all highly recommend it.

Us girls at the end of a very long but very enjoyable day 🙂

Tomorrow it is Olive and Edie’s last day of school and then on Wednesday morning we fly to Virginia to have a look round. It’s going to be a big week, full of many emotions. I’m going to try and write a post from Virginia just to let you catch a small glimpse of our new stomping ground.

Take care everyone. Lots of love xxx

Barcelona

I’m listening to this song as I write this post. Freddy Mercury and his impassioned and rather over the top number seems somehow fitting whilst writing about such a colourful and vibrant city. I heard this song so often during the television coverage of the 1992 summer Olympics and often wondered if I’d ever make it to “Barcelona!!” – imagine if you will Freddy belting out that last word. I certainly never dreamed I’d be visiting at the age of 40 with a husband and 2 children in tow – as the saying goes, life is full of surprises!

The Croad ladies hit the streets of Barcelona.

To say that we liked Barcelona is an understatement. We loved it – Olive declared it to be the best place we have visited and we are already toying with the idea of going back in the summer. Three days really wasn’t enough.

Before all the Barcelona love however, we had a wee bit of Croad love. I know that the girls have been missing Richard but I got a feel of just how much they miss him when I saw their reactions on spotting him at the airport.

Richard took this photo as the girls rushed towards him. Tissues anyone?!

After the dramatic reunion we headed into Barcelona. We were staying just outside of the city centre and once we’d dropped off our things and had a quick freshen up we jumped on the subway and headed into the city. Our first stop was the Arc de Triomf, a structure which was built for the Barcelona exposition in 1888.

So now we can all say we've seen two Arc de Triomfs 🙂

From here we wandered through the streets until we arrived at La Rambla, the tree lined pedestrian mall popular with tourists and locals. We grabbed a quick bite to eat then stopped at a souvenir shop to make the etremely important purchase of flamenco dancer outifts complete with polka dot clip clop shoes!

I think this picture sums up beautifully just how Olive and Edie feel when they don their flamenco outfits. And oh how they can get some noise out of the shoes!

As we excited the souvenir store we noticed that people seemed to be congregating on either side of the street and we quickly grabbed an empty spot. Being in a predominantly Catholic country on Good Friday, I had high hopes of seing something religious and our timing couldn’t have been more perfect.

When these two appeared we knew something interesting must be about to unfold...

...definitely interesting! Olive and Edie were completely unfazed.

Of course those guys were just the supporting act and JC soon took centre stage.

His Mum was there too and was a big hit with the girls - "Oooo look it's Mother Mary"!

Saturday began with the obgliatory search for a good cup of coffee and then we hopped on one of the tourist buses. We were heading for Parc Guell – the garden situated on the hill of El Carmel – and decided to take the tourist bus so we could see a bit more of the city along the way.

Olive really enjoyed the trip on the bus and listened very intently to all the commentary.

Edie mostly just practised posing!

We saw many eye-catching sculptures...

lots of interesting modern architecture...

a giant easter egg...

an old bull fighting ring...

and Gaudi's masterpiece the Sagrada Familia.

Maybe he was responsible for the giant Chupa Chups too!

We spent a good couple of hours in Parc Guell – there was so much to look at and listen to, as musicians were dotted throughout the gardens. The colours seemed so much richer and more vibrant than here in Antwerp or maybe that was just the beautiful weather!

Picnic lunch in Parc Guell.

Some of the gorgeous Barcelona colours.

We headed to the waterfront for dinner – close to what was the Olympic Village. We ate a great meal looking out at the sea and the girls had a blast running around on the sand.

Fish sculpture near Barceloneta beach.

The floral adornments, as you have probably guessed, are part of the flamenco outfits.

The beach at nightfall - beautiful.

We woke on Easter Sunday morning to more blue skies and headed straight back to Barceloneta beach. We’d promised the girls a longer play at the beach and a chance to wear “our togs”!!

No togs for me however - quite happy with a latte and a stunning view.

I know...I'm biased...but they are stunning!

And just a little bit crazy too!

Around lunchtime we walked into the old part of the city and stopped for some tapas. Then more wandering, a quick rest at home and then back to Sagrada Familia for a closer look.

It really is spectacular.

We headed back to La Rambla for dinner and a glass of sangria - yum 🙂

Richard disappeared back to the States very early on Monday morning and the girls and I spent our morning exploring the aquarium. I’d located the whereabouts of a Camper store and was planning on doing some serious credit card damage after all that fish watching. However Easter Monday in Barcelona meant most stores were closed so no new shoes for me – probably just as well! We did manage to find a Desigual store that was open which kept the girls very happy. They love the riot of colour and pattern that hits you when you walk into a Desigual shop and there was much oohing and aahing and a teeny bit of purchasing!

So all in all it was a fantastic trip – just a little on the short side! There are oodles more photos if you click on the Flikr link – my camera tells me I took over 500! Rest assured I did whittle it down befroe uploading!

It’s a big day in our house tomorrow – Olive is turning six. Will try and write something quick tomorrow evening. Until then, crank up the Freddy Mercury – Barcelona!!!

Paasvakantie

It’s paasvakantie or Easter holidays in Belgium at the moment. Olive and Edie have two weeks off school and Richard is into his second week in the United States. We’re missing him lots but are really looking forward to seeing him in Barcelona on Friday – yipee!

Thought I’d share with you a few of the things we’ve been doing to keep ourselves busy.

Olive went mountain biking. Technically this happened before the Easter holiday but I couldn't resist including this picture - so cute with her helmet and camelbak - just like her Dad 🙂

Olive and Edie went to a girls only birthday tea party. Naturally this called for the hair straighteners!

They are posing in front of the tree which will become our paasboom or Easter tree.

Edie with her great friend Chloe, who was hosting the tea party.

Olive got all dressed up for the Easter egg hunt at school. Her friend Harry told his Mum that "Olive looked so beautiful today". When I told her what he said there was a lot of blushing!

The girls blinged up the paasboom...

and did a spot of egg dyeing.

No matter how hard I try, I can never get ours to look like Martha Stewart's!!

Found these nifty egg holders in the supermarket.

Made adding some paint so much easier.

I even attempted making some hot cross buns. I really miss these.

I find any recipe that includes the words "yeast" and "kneading" somewhat terrifying. Fortunately our mixer has a hook attachment that does the kneading for you. Despite this I was still convinced that the dough wouldn't rise.

To my utter surprise it did and the girls proclaimed the buns delicious. I think they were a little on the tough side - a bit over kneaded I suspect - but not bad at all for a first attempt. Thanks Nigella!

We took a ride on this amazing wheel set up outside the central railway station.

Looking pretty happy with the Easter holidays so far.

Near the big wheel there were a few amusement park rides.

How could we resist a Popeye and Olive Oyl carousel?

We also checked out this movie from the makers of Wallace and Gromit. Very funny, great soundtrack and a dodo!

On Friday we have a very early start in order to be at Brussels Airport in time for our flight to Barcelona. Everyone we have spoken to about this city has had nothing but good things to say about it. Edie and Olive have Spanish friends, a brother and sister who come from Barcelona, and their Mum very kindly took me out for coffee and gave me a whole list of places to go. We are very excited.

Hope you all have a great Easter. Safe travels and I’ll be back early next week with the Barcelona update!

The Atomium and Mini Europe

In 1958 Brussels played host to the World Expo or World’s Fair. Nearly 15,000 workers spent three years developing a site on the Heysel Plateau, seven kilometres northwest of central Brussels. The crown jewel of this expo was the construction of a giant model of a unit cell of an iron crystal, magnified 165 billion times. The model was named the Atomium and decades later it remains one of Brussels’ best known landmarks.

The Atomium.

On Saturday we drove to Brussels to visit the Atomium and the nearby attraction, Mini Europe. It was a beautiful spring day – we even had to break out the sunscreen!

We spent around an hour exploring the innards of the giant steel structure. Olive and Edie loved all the stairs and escalators, whilst I enjoyed the retro colours and furniture found inside the giant spheres. Despite its age, the Atomium doesn’t look dated, and must have been quite a spectacle back in the 1950’s.

View from the top sphere.

Climbing one of the staircases. I really liked the blue and orange colour scheme.

I also really liked this seating area - made me think of wine gums!

Many other visitors were attempting to create the "I'm holding the Atomium in my hands" picture. Ours wasn't that successful!

From the Atomium we headed over to Mini Europe – a miniature park which has reproductions of the most attractive monuments in the European Union on show. Roughly 80 cities and 350 buildings are represented. The park is renowned for the quality of its models, some of which cost as much as €350,000.

The Grand Place in Brussels - otherwise known as the €350,000 model!

Mini Europe was one of the first attractions we heard about when we came to Belgium, but we decided to delay our visit until we had actually done some European trips. This decision really paid off. Olive and Edie were extremely engaged with all of the exhibits and it was amazing to see and hear their ever increasing knowledge of Europe. Olive even went so far as to say it was better than Plopsaland – as you are probably aware from my earlier posts about Plopsaland, this is extremely high praise!

Amsterdam.

Sacre Coeur.

Pisa.

The Berlin Wall.

If you click on the link to my Flikr photos, you can see many more images from our visit to the Atomium and Mini Europe. It was a great day out, made even better by such stunning weather – here’s hoping that keeps up!

Richard left today for a four week trip to the United States. It is going to be hard to be apart for such a long time, so we’ve decided to reward ourselves with a rendezvous in Barcelona. Easter conveniently falls in the middle of those four weeks so we are going to spend four days together exploring this wonderful Spanish city. Richard will fly in from the US and the girls and I will fly from Brussels to meet him.

We are all very excited. Edie has already invented a game called “going to Barcelona” which involves going through all the summer clothes, working out different outfits and then packing them into various pink handbags! Both girls are determined to come home from Spain with flamenco dancer outfits which must include red and white polka dot dancing shoes – ole!

Lots of love to you all xxx

Nijntje – Miffy

WARNING – if you are planning on making a visit to the Dick Bruna exhibition in Mechelen and want to be surprised by what you see there, I suggest you stop reading now! The exhibition is wonderful and I highly recommend it, but I’d hate to spoil it 🙂

Sunday was a beautiful spring day. Richard had just arrived back from a trip to the US so we didn’t have any major plans, but wanted to make the most of the good weather. Unfortunately it was one of those days when every suggestion we made to the girls was met with “I don’t want to do that” and each had very set and very different ideas as to how they’d like to spend the day – just a tad frustrating! We finally settled on a trip to Mini Europe in Brussels, only to discover that it was closed until mid-March – insert exasperated sigh here!

The next agreeable option was a trip to Lier to visit the De Kleine Wereld museum – a very sweet looking dolls and dollhouse museum. We packed everything we needed and as we dashed out the door I grabbed my DK Belgium guide assuming the address would be in there – twas not until we’d been on the road for a good 15 minutes that I discovered my assumption was wrong – this day was really not going well 😦

As Lier is a small place we figured that finding the museum wouldn’t be too difficult – again another bad assumption. When we finally found what we thought was the right building, it looked nothing like a doll house museum. I grabbed a passing policeman who told me that the museum had closed down – despite the fact it still has a very live website promoting all the beautiful things you can see there –  insert choice of swear word here!

After a quick pow wow we hit the road again, this time heading for Mechelen. Our destination was the Dick Bruna exhibition at the Cultuur Centrum. Dick Bruna is the creator of Miffy or Nijntje as she is known in Belgium and The Netherlands.

I’m a big fan of Miffy, and despite a few mumblings from Olive about Miffy being “babyish” we were all pretty happy with the decision to go.

Me, on our arrival in Mechelen, desperately hoping that the day would get better!

Once again we were without a specific address but Nijntje gave us lots of clues as to where the exhibition was...

keep going...you're getting warmer...

and warmer...

over here! Nijntje in the Mechelen Grote Markt...

in a bunch of balloons...

she was even doing a spot of gardening!

Made it!

The exhibition was fantastic. Lots to look at and plenty of hands on activities for the children – it was incredibly difficult to drag the girls away.

Nijntje.

Olive and Edie designing outfits for Nijntje.

There was even a circus.

Olive telling the story of De Koning or The King.

Edie playing with the puppet theatre.

Not really that babyish after all!

We grabbed a late lunch at a nearby cafe then headed across the Grote Markt, back to where we’d parked the car. As we walked we noticed lots of people congregating on the square, many of the children dressed in costumes.

Something was definitely about to happen...

We asked someone what everyone was waiting for and were told that it was Mechelen Carnaval day and the parade was about to start. Perfect timing! And with the Miffy ears that they’d made at the exhibition, Olive and Edie even had their own costumes.

Twee kleine Nijntjes.

Not long after three o’clock the drums sounded and a town crier appeared, welcoming everyone at the top of his voice. The parade was a very odd mix of floats, displays and music – nowhere near the standard of what we experienced in Binche last year – but still lots of fun. Sweets were flung into the crowd from every float and Olive and Edie had a great time scurrying here and there to collect the fallen snoepjes.

The town crier hard at work.

There were some very funny sights.

Even a little bit of Carnaval Rio.

Olive and Edie's favourite float.

So the day that had started off pretty dismally turned out rather well. And Nijntje inspired me to dig out something I started making when I was pregnant with Edie…

must finish before leaving Belgium!

There are many more photos of the exhibition and the carnaval if you click on the Flikr link.

Hope everyone is well and a special Happy Birthday to James! xxx

Food

I thought I’d write a little bit about the online whole food workshop I started a few weeks ago. To be honest it seemed pretty daunting at the beginning. We were encouraged to post an introduction – a bit about ourselves, what we hoped to get out of the course etc. – and after reading many descriptions of veganism, vegetarianism, only eating organic food, growing all our vegetables in the back garden…I was a little intimidated. I am the woman who used to think a couple of chit chats  was an adequate breakfast!

Each week for three months we are given material around a specific theme. There are cooking demonstration videos; an online discussion board where you can ask questions, swap stories, recommend good cook books; specific information relating to the week’s theme; and lots of recipes. After perusing the recipes sent through in week one I knew there could be only one entry point for me into this brave new world – the sweet stuff!

We began with raspberry oat slice. Here's Edie mixing the frozen raspberries and raspberry jam.

Two new cooking ingredients for me. Coconut oil instead of butter and a mix of flax seed and water in place of an egg.

Ready for the raspberry filling.

Olive pressing down the oaty top layer.

Just the thing to go with my morning coffee. This is my attempt at Donna Hay-esque food styling and photography!

The slice was delicious – I had great hopes of freezing some but it was gone within 48 hours 🙂 Since then we’ve enjoyed cranberry and apple crumble, tamari and maple syrup roasted vegetables, kumara and spinach mash, coconut, banana and chocolate cookies and the green smoothie, so called because it is made with a healthy serving of kale and some hemp seed.

I was planning to pull a fast one on the girls and make the smoothie out of range of their beady eyes but ultimately felt that was completely defeating the purpose  of me doing this whole thing. I got everything ready and as predicted Olive’s nose wrinkled in disgust when she saw the kale going in – I think her exact words were “you’re making a broccoli smoothie?” Their interest was piqued when they saw the bananas going in, and by the time I added the mango, raspberries and pineapple they had their noses down the barrel of the blender, loudly declaring, “I want some of that!” Another success. They asked for it for breakfast this morning and then Edie asked to take the leftovers to school in her drink bottle. Olive oh so casually suggested that capsicum or carrots might be a good addition next time – I nearly wept! Words that would have never been uttered from my five year old lips.

So after my initial trepidation, we’re off to a pretty good start. It also helps that I have a friend here who is doing the course too.  Heather Bruggeman who is running the workshop, is a really interesting woman – nutritionist, yoga teacher, Montessori enthusiast, homeschooler and fan of Michael Pollan – some of who’s work I’ve read. His famous quote sums up what I’m trying to achieve for us as a family – “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”

Okay this was meant to be a short post and once again I’m rambling on! I’ve finally mastered the art of including links in my blog – if you click on the underlined words you should be taken to another location – fingers crossed.

Enough from me – am off to watch a video about cooking quinoa! xxx

Dinant

On Saturday morning we packed up the car and drove south into Wallonia, the French speaking region of Belgium. As it was the last couple of days of the crocus vakantie, and as Richard is heading to the States next weekend, we wanted to have a bit of a family holiday. Plus we wanted to get back into travelling more regularly in and around Belgium. Our travel in recent months was focused heavily on New York and then New Zealand, and as our time in Europe is not unlimited we need to keep on exploring.

Notre-Dame church and the Citadelle of Dinant.

About a ninety minute drive south of Antwerp, you will find the small town of Dinant. This very picturesque settlement stands on the east bank of the river Meuse. Dinant is dominated by the gothic style, black onion dome of Notre-Dame church, and also by the escarpment or Citadelle perched high on the rocks above the church.

The traditional sites of Dinant had to wait however as Richard was very keen for us to explore some of the surrounding countryside on our fietsen or bikes. Olive and Edie are always keen to travel this way and as I do a lot of cycling in Antwerp, I couldn’t see any reason why not to…I had of course forgotten one of the key differences between Flanders and Wallonia…hills!

All ready to explore.

"What was that? A climb akin to the Wadestown hill? Yep..sure..no problem...gulp!"

Because of the aforementioned hills, there was a lot of huffing and puffing and a fair amount of walking whilst pushing the bicycles, but what we got to see made it all worth it.

"Just a bit further Mum...honest!"

Such beautiful scenery - Wallonia has so many more wide open spaces.

The reward for yet another climb.

Of course the great thing about climbing hills is that you also get to go down them – heaps of fun, if not a tad scary, on the fietsen. No photos of this unfortunately – all energies focused on surviving downhill dash with child behind me!

We covered about a 20km loop then reattached the bikes to the car and headed for our hotel, Les Grisons. We had planned to drop off our stuff and head out again but lo and behold we switched on the television just as the England vs Wales rugby match began. To be honest I was glad of an excuse to rest my aching limbs and made good use of the bath whilst Richard revelled in England’s defeat.

Les Grisons - just outside of Dinant.

The couple of times we’ve been in Wallonia, I’ve had the opportunity to parlez-vous Francais and I made very good use of my high school French on this occasion. There was a mix up with our booking which led to me opening the door into an already occupied room. I had to go back to the main hotel, ask the daughter of the hotelier – about 10 years old and no English – to go and get papa and then explain that “il ya quelqu’un dans chambre dix-sept”. I managed to get everything resolved without resorting to English once – tres bien!

We dined at the hotel restauarant – very formal, very quiet, an older couple next to us who appeared to grimace every time Olive or Edie muttered a sound, very stressed out Mummy – you get the picture. Halfway through dinner, the daughter of the hotelier appeared and promptly had Olive and Edie under her spell. Despite the fact that she had no English and their French runs to “bonjour” and “on y va”, they got on like a house on fire. The older, grim faced gentleman asked me about the girls and turned out to be quite lovely. We had a little chat en francais and dinner suddenly got a whole lot more relaxed – phew!

Sunday was devoted to catching the telepherique or cable car up to the Citadelle, and exploring Grotte la Merveilleuse – a fantastic cave which is renowned for its frozen waterfalls, stalactites and stalagmites. We also drove through the Rocher Bayard, a pinnacle of rock which marks the most westerly point reached by German troops during the Ardennes offensive.

Rocher Bayard.

Quick photo opp whilst there was no traffic.

Looking down on Dinant from the Citadelle.

The escarpment. It's possible to walk up from the bottom - only 408 steps.

Descending into Grotte la Marveilleuse.

Frozen waterfalls.

Our wonderful guide who switched effortlessly between French, English and Dutch - amazing.

Olive and Edie, who’d had a very late Saturday night, were starting to fade by the time we reached the end of our tour of the cave, so we started to make for home. Whilst the girls slept, we took a slow drive home via Namur and Leuven – more places for us to come back and visit. Belgium is definitely underrated as a tourist attraction.

If you click on the link to my flickr photos you will see many more images of our visit to Dinant, plus you’ll also find out who is Dinant’s most famous son – your clue is Henry Mancini’s famous musical score, The Pink Panther.

And I’ve written captions for the photos too – all the more reason to check them out!

Until next time – au revoir!

Buiten

A couple of weeks ago Antwerp was hit by a cold snap – a very cold snap. Temperatures were well below zero, in fact they were the coldest they’d been in fifteen years. Some days it was -9 degrees and overnight it got down to -13. What started one Friday afternoon as a gentle snowfall, quickly became a blizzard which paralyzed the roads around the city for hours.

A snowy Saturday morning on the Meir.

Because of the extreme cold we spent a great deal of time indoors or binnen. Last week the weather settled and as the thermometer was hovering around 4 degrees, pretty tropical when compared with -9, we decided to take advantage and spend some time buiten or outside.

We began our buiten day at the beautiful Antwerp park, Rivierenhof. Rivierenhof has a great space for children to ride their fietsen or bikes, and the girls  had a great time whizzing around the miniature streets. We even got Edie to take the training wheels off – albeit very briefly.

I think the last time I posted pics of Olive on this track, she was just learning to ride without her trainer wheels. What a difference a few months makes.

Edie Kinevil roaring down the home straight!

Zusters op de fiets.

From Rivierenhof we headed to the Kalmthout Arboretum. I wrote about our visit there last autumn when it was full of all the glorious herfst colours.

This is the same tree that I used as the first image for my previous post about Kalmthout - looks a little bit naked now!

Despite the fact that we were visiting in winter, Kalmthout was still beautiful. Certainly different than when we had visited in autumn, but no less interesting or inspiring.

Edie playing peekaboo.

It even hailed briefly!

Olive's summer house photo.

The lake was still somewhat frozen.

It's a very beautiful garden. The girls love exploring all the nooks and crannies.

Warming up with the help of a little fire.

Very pleased to find this book, in English, in the Arboretum shop. Richard was stoked to find a book all about the couple who started Kalmthout Arboretum - ook in het Engels.

Being in Kalmthout made me want to rush back to New Zealand and find a house with a big garden! As that wasn’t a terribly practical solution for a Sunday afternoon we decided to create our own mini garden on our little terrace in the heart of the city. We already had some flower seeds which we’d picked up on our last visit to Kalmthout, so we bought some carrot seeds to go with them. On the way home we stopped by Walter Van Gastel – a garden, florist, homewares kind of store. It’s huge – there’s actually nothing in New Zealand I can really compare it to. It’s kind of like an enormous, incredibly chic Palmers Gardenworld, complete with great cafe and playground which keeps the girls happy whilst we browse the aisles. We first visited Walter Van Gastel in the weeks before Christmas, when we’d just arrived in Belgium. The displays were astounding.

So today we were only meant to be popping in to grab some potting mix and a tray to plant our seeds into  – famous last words! I was instantly won over by all the beautiful Easter displays and couldn’t help but come home with a few pretty extras!

The highlight of our trip to Walter Van Gastel was what we discovered languishing at the back of the store, perilously close to the heavily discounted odds and ends they were trying to get rid of…

what the....insert another F word here...??!!

I’m not aware of any gardening craze sweeping Belgium which involves the use of distressed looking planter pots emblazoned with “New Zealand”. Obviously noone else is either – hence the large stash of them. I resisted the urge to buy one – much to my husband’s relief!

Back home Richard and the girls got busy in the “garden”. They loved every step of the process – particularly the all important use of the watering can.

Getting ready to plant the carrot seeds.

Very carefully placing the seeds.

Adding the water.

Olive giving the green thumbs up to her planted flower trays.

More water.

Final soil top up.

So now we will wait with baited breath to see what emerges from our inner city garden  – hopefully lots of juicy carrots for the paashaas or Easter bunny.

It’s crocus vakantie this week so the girls are off school. We’re planning a visit to the toy museum, will make a trip to the movies to see The Muppets, have tickets booked for a circus style puppet show and hopefully squeeze in a couple of playdates. Oh…and of course…will water plants regularly!!

Lots of love everyone xxx

The big F – or forty, fit, feestjes, friends and food

It seems that my life is revolving around the letter F at the moment – and because of this I have been very busy. Being busy is a great thing although my blog has suffered and I do miss having time to write. It doesn’t help that Richard is having a spate of prolific blog writing at the moment -however I can’t see myself sitting writing at 4am which is when he’s usually tapping away!

Turning forty was my first big f. Not content with one party, I threw a second one here in Antwerp. As my birthday fell on a Saturday evening it was a perfect excuse for a bit of a do.

The official 40 portrait. Saturday 4th of February, 2012.

I had a great night surrounded by new friends from all over the world – the complete opposite of my birthday last year. It was a good time to look back and reflect how far I’d come since that gloomy Friday last year when I sat, very glum in front of the telly, scoffing the birthday tart the girls had picked out for me at the local bakery.

I made my own cake this year - Nigella's pomegranate jewel cake - lekker!

The wine flowed, the conversation flowed, Richard made a beautiful speech, I gave a pretty good rebuttal (!) and I managed to kick on till nearly 2am. (Those of you who know me very well will recognise what a feat this is. I am, after all, the woman who suggested an end time of 9:30pm for my hen’s night!)

Doing a bit of speech making.

Birthday parties or feestjes have been an almost weekly occurrence since we got back to Antwerp. This does mean that I am practically on first name terms with the staff at In den Olifant (gorgeous Antwerp toy store), but mostly it demonstrates just how many great friendships that we, as a family, are making.

The Mega Mindy twins with birthday girl Milla.

Mask making at Charles' birthday.

Even Mum and Dad got in on the act.

Making friends with Natacha, Charles' precious baby sister.

The big 4 year old.

In addition to all our new friendships we were lucky last week to have time with an old friend who lives on this side of the world. I’ve known Davina since my early teaching days – nearly 20 years ago eek –  and she’s now based in London with her partner and baby. Davina and Jenson came and spent a few days with us and we had lots of fun taking them to our favourite places. It was really nice also to watch Olive and Edie with a young baby. Olive in particular was so interested and helpful – quite the mother hen.

Having fun at Aquatopia.

We also made sure Jenson's visit was very educational. Here O and E are instructing him in the all important art of iPad usage. J is for Jenson!

Olive in Mummy mode 🙂

So now to fit and food…and really what they are all about is yet another f word – focus. Our life in Belgium affords me a very great gift – time – and this year my goal is to put that time to good use. Two goals I want to achieve are getting fit and working towards improving our family diet. I’m running and getting back into weight training with the aim of doing the 5k race that is part of the Antwerp 10 mile event in April. With a friend I’ve made here, I’m doing an online course focussed on whole food. You might remember my earlier post where I revealed my vegetable deficient past! I’m hoping this course will be a good way to get some more plant based food onto our table – it’ll be just like the picture below!!

I suspect members of my family are engaging in some serious laughter and choking on their respective hot beverages right about now!

And f….inally – the other thing I’ve done is join the PTA – I’ve actually wound up as co-chair in fact. I was struggling with an f association for this – best I can come up with is there are f…ive of us on the committee!

Take care everyone. xxx

Back

So we are back in Antwerp after a wonderful four weeks  in New Zealand. Yes the weather wasn’t great, but seeing family and friends more than made up for it. I was planning on blogging whilst I was away, but we were so busy and selfishly I didn’t want to give up any of my precious time to sit on a computer.

I found coming back harder than I’d anticipated. Richard went back to work, the girls went back to school and I felt thoroughly depressed! Fortunately I came home with season 1 and 2 of Downton Abbey on DVD, and used that as  medication to get me through 🙂

I’ve decided not to blog about our trip – what I’ve done is put a heap of photos on Flickr and written captions for all of them. If you’re interested click on the link and you’ll get a small taste of our trip home. If you click on the set entitled New Zealand the pictures will come up in roughly the right order.

At the end of our first week back in Belgium, we celebrated Edie’s fourth birthday. We threw together a party and Richard managed to do a great replica of the Minnie Mouse cake Edie saw on YouTube – for some reason my girls love watching cake decorating clips!

The master at work.

Stage two complete...

and now for the tricky bit!

The finished product - Edie proclaimed it "perfect!"

Edie modelling her birthday present.

Making the fruit kebabs.

Our house all dressed up for the party.

Pin the tail on the donkey was very popular.

Richard is travelling back to New Zealand on Sunday but is under strict instructions to be back in time for my official 40th in just over two weeks.

Wonder if he’ll make me a Minnie Mouse cake too?!