I'm shocked!

I'm shocked!

We had an amazing weekend, but still... I'm shocked!

Who can come up with this?

It all started great! Me and my lovely boyfriend went to see my cousin and her husband and two lovely girls. They normaly are in beautiful Friesland, this time we could find them in Groningen. Not the city Groningen, but the Groningen area. To be more precise... Jipsingboertange. You must have heard of this place. It has at least 3 houses, hihi... !!

Groningen is a lovely part of The Netherlands, and the last couple of years I have started to apreciate it even more. My cousin has the cutest cottage there on a campingsite. She invited me and my boyfriend to stay with them for a weekend, so we decided to Invade Jipsingboertange.

The first day we had a great day, walking through the woods. The kids loved it as well, so did my boyfriend. We enjoyed the lovely weather and were surprised that we were so lucky with it. Weatherforcast wasn't so great for this weekend. After playing in the "speeltuin" with the two lovely girls, great dinner, amazing 80ties movie, briliant romantic walk on a dark campingsite with my boyfriend, it was time to sleep.

This part was the part I wasn't looking forward to. My cousin had told me that the mice loved this place as well. Mice are ok, but not running around me when I'm sleeping on the floor! My lovely Stuart Little had promised me that he would protect me from any mouse invasion that would take place during the night, but once his head touched his pillow he was snorring like a happy kid. As far as I know, no mouse invaded... but it wasn't my best night of sleeping either! The next morning we had an early breakfast, because of course a 2 and 3 year old are not going to let you sleep till oh let's say... at least 8?

But the day started really nice. A gezellig breakfast, two very awake girls... 4 sleepy adults, great start of the day! The only thing was that it was raining cats and dogs. So we spend most of the morning in the little cottage, watching the snorkels and smurfs, sesamestreet. It was great! But we also wanted to go out and enjoy the area of Groningen. When it stopped raining we made our way to our cars and drove off to Ter Apel, to have a look at the amazing old monestry and have a walk in the old forrest.

When we arrived at the monestry we had a walk around it. It looked amazing. I made some pictures and we were enjoying the view. Until..............

And this is really true!

We saw a woman with her trousers down, sitting on the grass outside the monestry, where everybody could see her, pee-ing!!! I was shocked, we were all shocked! WHAT THE ???

I have to say, I'm all for pee-ing in nature. When you really have to go and there are no toilets... please, I insist... water the plants... But go at least somewhere private! Behind the bushes, a tree? But this! She was sitting in the middle of the field, no trees, bushes... nothing.... Her kid was standing next to her and her husband was 10 steps away with another kid. Great example!

After this we had a short walk in the forrest next to the monestry. Unfortunately we couldn't go for a long walk because there was a lot of rain waiting for us to surprise us. We ran back to the car and spend the rest of the afternoon in our lovely little cottage!

Books...

As you all must know by now, I love to read!

My mum and dad had a bookshop when I grew up.

There was a constant supply of books at hand.

So I spend a lot of holidays in my 'camping chair', reading.

Reading in bed the whole night under the duvet with a flashlight was also one of the things I loved doing, especially during holidays.

Of course it made my mum and dad wondering sometimes why I was so tired the next day!

Since I have to travel a lot lately, because of work, my reading has gone up again.

My friends and family know my love for books, so they gave me a few for my birthday last April. You're probably wondering why this is so special to write a blog about it.

Well... with those books was a book about Africa. That probably doesn't sound very exciting, because of course... there are loads of books about Africa.

Well this book is so special, because it's a story about an English woman travelling with her young children and husband to Africa with absolutely no idea where they will end up.

Even this could be nothing special, as I said earlier... loads of books about Africa!

But what was it then that made the book already special without reading it?

Well, that's very simple!

The author herself gave me this book as a present for my birthday!

Of course I let her put a signature in the book, you never know...she probably will be really successful in writing and publishing her books!

This was a great gift!

I had to finish another book I was reading before I could start with the Africa book.

I must say I really really enjoyed it. And I read it in a few days.

I was looking forward to my train journey's.

It's a lovely story about life in Africa.

Stories about daily life in Africa.

The stories are told in such a way it makes you feel like you're there as well.

It made it easier for me to imagine that probably because I have the privilege of knowing the author. So I saw her walking around in her own stories and going through adventures and the normal daily things. It is a bit odd of course, because I know her now and she went to Africa in the eighties, much younger!! I once met one of her daughters, she and her sister were a baby and toddler back then. But even if you don't know the characters in the book personally,

it's a lovely story.

One of my friends has been to Africa and became very curious about the book, so she borrowed it so she can read it herself.

I asked Vallerie Poore (the author) if I could write something about her book on my blog. Because I'd like you all to know about this lovely story.

She said yes, so here it is !

African Ways by Vallerie Poore

If you are interested, you can mail Vally, or find it at bol.com.

She also wrote a book about her first year(s) on a barge in Rotterdam.

That book I will get next time we will see Vally. I can't wait to read it!

This is Vally's blog: http://vereeniging.blogspot.com/

New shoes... but who's going to wear them?

I'm a Woman... I love new shoes...

These are my new ones....

Aren't they adorable?

But on who's feet do they look more gorgeous,

mine or Stu's?

Great dinner

We just had an amazing meal!!

Since we don't get the chance of eating together all the time,

or eating properly because of work times,

we try to spend some more time in the kitchen when we can.

Most of the time that's during our weekends.

We pick a recipe we haven't tried before with a lot of vegetables

(We seem to miss out on those now and then.)

So we already ate a lot of nice stuff, like filled paprika, filled chicken...

This time we ate Mexican. It was really good !!!!

A mexican tortilla-cake and a nachos salad.

Definitely going to eat that more often....

Has anyone got more great recipes for us to try some time?

Baking...

I have a lovely prince...

His name is Stuart and he is my boyfriend.

He designs his own cartoons,

and when he's busy doing that...

I bake my cakes.

He must have sneaked into the kitchen

and saw me baking...

Because this is the result !