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

NYC Part 4

We woke the next morning, all still on a bit of a high from the great day we’d had on Sunday. Our plan for the day was to check out the after marathon happenings in Central Park – I at least wanted to see the finish line and get a photo of Richard in front of it. Richard donned his official marathon finisher top but no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t get him to wear his medal. Every other runner we encountered that day wasn’t as modest – medals as far as the eye could see! Two days later runners were still wearing them.

We took some pictures at the finish line and watched the big clean up that was taking place. As he was approaching the finish line the day before, Richard had spied another great playground, so we sat in the autumn sunshine whilst the girls scaled some of the big rocks that are found in Central Park and then made good use of the playground.

Our marathon champion with two of his biggest fans.

Central Park - full of beautiful autumn colours.

Doing a spot of rock climbing.

The mountaineers in action.

Columbus Circle was our next stop where we refueled with coffee and hot chocolate at Whole Foods which, along with Trader Joe’s, was my shopping highlight in NYC. After a bit more wandering around we decided to call it a day. Olive and Edie had outdone themselves with all the walking thrust upon them and they were keen to just head back to Halloween House and play with the toys that had been left for them to use.

That night, Richard and I went our for dinner by ourselves – something we never expected we’d be able to do. By a stroke of luck our contact person for the house we rented is a nanny for a couple of families in the neighbourhood. As soon as they met Esther the girls fell in love with her and when she told us she could look after the girls if we wanted a “date night” we jumped at the chance. (Olive and Edie liked Esther so much they asked every day “is it tonight that Esther is coming?”)

So Richard and I enjoyed a great dinner at Henry’s End restaurant in Brooklyn Heights. Richard had turtle soup – actually very tasty – and I partook of a wine called Fisticuffs! With all that Scottish blood in me I just couldn’t resist. After dinner we wandered down to the bridge and took in the view across to Manhattan. When we got home the girls were all tucked up. They’d spent the night showing Esther Olive’s Mummy dance, teaching her a few Flemish words and telling her all about their cousins in NZ.

Date night!

Another great day and night – our bite of the big apple was proving to be very tasty!

Bollekesloop

At the corner of the Mechelsesteenweg and the Boomgaardstraat you will find the De Koninck Brewery. Despite being in a country that is world renowned for it’s beer, the De Koninck brewery is Antwerp’s only brewery and dates back to 1827.

A glass of De Koninck beer is known locally as a bolleke – that’s what you’ll hear people asking for in the pubs here.

A De Koninck bolleke.

Yesterday, the Antwerp Athletics Club, in association with the De Koninck brewery, held it’s annual Bollekesloop. There was a 5km race, a 10km race and a 1km event for kids. Richard entered the 5k event and Olive was very keen to give the 1k event a go – especially as her friends Colin and Liam were going to run too.

Despite the grey clouds and drizzle there was a very festive atmosphere – bouncy castles for the kids, a band and of course lots of beer and chips.

The De Koninck brewery.

Unfortunately Edie was too young to run but she worked up a sweat on the bouncy castle.

Olive, Colin and Liam all numbered up and ready to run.

One very proud Papa - New York marathon here she comes!!

Heading for the finish line and feeling a bit puffed!

Yes the medal is nice but please can I sit down now?!

Richard, as usual, making it look so easy. He came 36th out of 179 runners - not bad for an old guy 🙂

Only in Belgium would you be handed a beer as soon as you've crossed the finish line! Richard, Craig and Hugh enjoying their bollekes.

It was a really great afternoon and Olive learnt the difference between a sprint and a long distance run. She also showed her very competitive streak – as I was congratulating her on how well she’d done, she eyeballed me and said “but I only finished in the middle Mum”! Looks like we’ll have to do it again next year.

Hope everyone is well. Missing you and sending all our love xxx