Trying to catch up... (Mainly Nijmegen)

I left off on Sunday the 6th and now it's the 15th already.  Time is flying indeed.  Now, with my memory you know I lose track of things that I have done if I don't write in my diary or make notes on my calendar, so.... I'll try and figure out what I have done by going through my pictures!

Here goes:

Monday and Tuesday remain blank, but on Wednesday we went to Bocholz in Limburg (near the German border) to visit Ferdy's aunty Yvonne.  A lovely lady who had visited Ferdy and Leonie last year.  I met her then and was glad I was included in the visit so I got to see her again. We had a lovely day, albeit the drive was quite tiring.  The difference between driving in the western part of the Netherlands and the east is quite noticeable.  It didn't help we were in peak hour traffic both times of the day! During that time trucks are not allowed to overtake, but there are still the super fast drivers (doing 130 kms/h or more) who try to push you off the road, so you have to constantly weave in and out of the truck lane if you don't want to drive that fast.  There are some three-lane highways, but even then it's harder then on the five-lane highways in the west.

Anyway, I don't have many pictures of our visit.  Just managed to take one on the road while I was waiting in a parking lot at a service station.  Perhaps I'll get a few more from Leonie later.

Our little Renault Twingo (if you know me well you know I hate little two door cars, in particular when there is three of you in the car and you don't get in and out as easy any more.  This may date back from my VW Beatle times.... :-))

We may have gone out for shopping in the meantime, or it has been raining.  I can't remember, but on Friday we went to Nijmegen.  We visited the Valkhof (castle) ruins and Valkhof museum; walked along the Waal river; traipsed around and around the labyrinth; enjoyed the view from the bridge, and walked to the heart of the city.  We had lunch at a snack bar and enjoyed our real Dutch lunch: frietjes and kroketten (hot chips with mayonaise (!) and croquets with mustard)  I had a lovely goulash croquet. In the city centre we set down for a huge ice cream.  It was such a lovely day.

Valkhof and walls

Chapel

View across the Waal

The red ones are boats of the fire brigade

At the bottom beneath the brown cloth are archeologists at work

Scale buildings of the former castle, chapel and walls

A very friendly guide at the chapel gave us lots of information about the past and all in perfect English.  He was a lovely man and, of course, one of the many volunteers that we come across everywhere in this country.

Inside the chapel

Outside the Valkhof Museum

Walking towards and along the Waal river

The traffic on the river is humongous

huge boats

a big boat pushing a slightly smaller one

The Labyrinth

The railway/bike bridge

Walking towards the city centre

old orphanage

this building use to be home of  the newspaper 'The Gelderlander'

'Even if I have to crawl or go barefoot, I would do anything to hear the bells of the St Steven's one last time'

Home, Den Bosch and Elst

Thursday, September 3, 2015

I think we've done shopping on Thursday morning, but haven't updated my blog for a few days, so it's more or less guessing.

In the afternoon Jack and Mayke come for drinks and we spend a few hours chatting together.  Of course stories about house exchanges and holidays among other things.

Unfortunately no pictures.  Too busy chatting!

Friday, September 4, 2015

On Friday we have to get up very early, and I mean 'very' early, because Leonie and Ferdy are going to Schiphol to pick up their son and want to catch the train at about 6 am.

After I have dropped them off I have my shower and have an easy morning all by myself again.  I contact Marlies, my 'old' schoolfriend in Den Bosch and we make a date for the afternoon.  At 2pm I arrive at her place and we have coffee together and chat away about old times.

We would love to spend some more time together so I suggest going out for dinner.  We drive to Chinese Restaurant 'Het Nieuwe Oosten' in de Rompert where we enjoy a lovely meal.  We both have Tjap Tjoy; Marlies with chicken and I with pork.  The restaurant is gezellig like most Chinese restaurants in the Netherlands, but there is a family that behaves very crude, complete with yelling children.  We really have to raise our own voices to be able to have a chat.  Not very pleasant.  Unfortunately they only leave shortly before we do.  They even come back briefly to empty a bowl with fortune cookies!

 

As we leave the restaurant rather late I drop off Marlies at home and go straight home to Wijchen.  It's been a long day...

Saturday, September 5, 2015

For today I had booked a workshop in Elst.  Over the years I've been a few times to Annelies' workshops and they are not only good fun, but it's also nice to meet many of my 'old' friends in miniatures at the workshops.

This time also Bert, the tutor, with whom I have done a few workshops in the past at his home.

Today we were going to make an old fashioned 'stroller', a wandelwagen, which I had requested and for which had been enough interest for Annelies to organise the workshop.

We started at 10 am with coffee and cake and a bit of a chat, after which we started with some serious work until lunchtime.

Lunch was soup, hot or cold drinks, and fruit and our own brought bread or bread rolls.

After lunch it was back to work until approx. mid afternoon, when we all went home with a beautiful finished product. The stroller looks so realistic and it can even fold as well!

At home I had a quiet evening in front of the TV until it was time to go to bed.

Sunday, September 6, 2015

I had prepared to have a quiet day at home, but at around mid-morning Wim sent an app asking if we would be home.  Well, as Leonie and Ferdy had gone to Amsterdam they were very welcome to visit me, but I would be the only one at home. :-)

No problem, they would come in the afternoon.  Which was great, because I had enough time to get ready and also do the necessary shopping.

We had a great time together, as usual, and talked a bit about family relations in connection with the family tree we were working on and also about great-aunt Riek, who had lived in Wijchen.

I suggested they stay for dinner and in the meantime we could go out to Wijchen centre and look at the house I'd sent Wim pictures off and also look for the house where she'd stayed after her husband's death.  The latter we couldn't find, but we had a nice walk through town anyway.

After we came home we had a few drinks and Wim took some lovely pictures of the rabbit that run amok through the back yard in the afternoon.  Then we had dinner and all to soon it was time for them to go home again.

Geocaching at Echteld and a few days at home

Monday, August 31, 2015

For Monday the forecast had been for cooler and wet weather, but we were lucky, we had a great sunny day and it was quite warm.

Nicole and I were going to meet halfway between Houten and Wijchen and therefore we'd settled on Echteld.

Nicole had brought their folding bikes, so set off on our bikes in search of a few caches. It actually got quite hot and I was grateful I didn't have to wear a helmet like we have to do in Australia.  It would've been all too much in the heat.

The ride through the polders was beautiful.  Finding caches only a bonus where I'm concerned!  If there'd be anything I'd miss at home is the carefree bike riding through the lovely green and wide polders.

We did find a few caches though, and a few we didn't.

Bomentrail #8 Treurwilg

 

Bomentrail #5 Es

 

   

 

 

 

Bomentrail #9Lindeboom

 

 

Hengelen

Having learned my lesson in Houten where we needed a magnet to extract a cache I'd bought a strong telescopic magnet with light at the Mega in Germany.  This one helped a lot when we had to 'fish' for a cache in the tube.

 

Bomentrail #1 Paardenkastanje    

 

Horse chestnut - see the horse in the chestnut? :-)

 

Even though we didn't find all the caches we had an enjoyable afternoon. We ended up with five.  Just enough to feel we'd achieved something.  

The CO of the caches, with whom I had had contact about a puzzle cache lived along the trail.  They'd invited us for coffee, but they weren't home at the time we passed through.  Never mind, it'd been a kind gesture.  Who knows, we might take them up on it next time (when I'm in the Netherlands ;-))

Tuesday and Wednesday, Sept 1 & 2, 2015

We mainly had a few quiet days at home.  On Tuesday I did some groceries shopping and picked up Leonie and Ferdy from the train in Nijmegen.

On Wednesday we also stayed home.  Leonie wanted to catch up on some washing after their trip to Paris; we got some more groceries and after dinner we had a short walk through the immediate area.

The weather has turned quite cool.  The sun is still out, but doesn't bring any warmth.  However, seeing the sun from behind the windows is pleasant enough compared with overcast days.

Catching up with family and friends in Wijchen and Den Bosch

Saturday, August 29, 2015

On Saturday Leonie and Ferdy leave for Paris.  I drop them of early in the morning at Nijmegen railway station for them to catch the train.

In the afternoon I am to meet up again with Peter, a (great?)cousin or cousin-once-removed. I don't know exactly, but we met a few years ago and are related through our grandfather on my mother's side.  We both like working on our family trees and thus have a common interest.

Peter comes to Wijchen to visit me and we have a cup of coffee here before we set off to Wijchen centre where we want to visit a cemetery.  We hope to find the graves of our great-aunt and great-uncle who have lived in Wijchen.  The graves cannot be found, however we do see Peter's parents' graves. A knock on the door at the presbytery, to find out more about old grave sites, goes unanswered.

Next we walk to the town centre and find the house where greataunt Riek and great-uncle Thom used to live.  He was a watchmaker, and may have been a juweler too, and the house and shop are still there.  It's even got a juweler's business still present.

After that we find a restaurant and something to drink and chat until we discover it's high time to leave.  By then it's 7 pm!

We had a great afternoon altogether and had lots of things to talk about.  Time flies when you're having fun.

Sunday, August 30, 2015

On Sunday Nicole, from Houten, and I were going to go geocaching, but the weather is not optimal.  We had thunderstorms during the night which lasted till mid-morning, so the chance that everything would be dry enough to search for caches were minimal.

Instead we decided to stay at home and I tried to solve a few puzzle caches, with little success I may add!

I felt rather like going out, because the weather had much improved.  I rang my friend Jose in Den Bosch and asked if she wanted to come to the fair that night. She did!

I drove to Den Bosch where we met at her place, had coffee and then we rode to the centre on the bike.  There is a great free bicycle parking area right in the middle of all the hustle and bustle, so that's where we parked and we didn't have far to walk.

We had poffertjes (a kind of puffed up little pancake a lot of foreigners now seem to know so well) and we had a beer; Jose a pink beer and I the brown Leffe that I like so much.

Poffertjes and Leffe Bruin

'Cheers'

After an ice cream to top it all off we rode back to Jose's place, had another cuppa (I skipped something stronger as I had to drive back home) and after some more chatting I left rather late.  As it was, too late, because after a warm night we had a thunderstorm with rain and hail!