Update on Holland trip, and my 75th.

Well here we are after about a week or so. We left on the 20th of July from Guildford Station in the pouring rain for the Netherlandsto celebrate my sister's 5oth wedding anniversary and my 75th birthday.

And we arrived in Holland in wonderful sunshine. Imagine. John and I went to our hotel Bel Air near Jolijn's flat but were not allowed to visit her as we were a surprise for my nieces and nephew, they were not to know we were in the country till Saturday evening when we all met up for a very special dinner. More about this later.

John and I therefore went off on our own to a super fish restaurant where we had a lovely meal, fish of course.

Next morning we went into town centre which neither of us knew very well and wondered about on the Lange Voorhout where se saw this mum and her baby

looking a bit apprehensive. These were part of a sculpture exhibition and they were scooters.

We wandered about and saw quite a bit of the Hague and especially the museum Mauritshuis, were we spend most of the morning looking at all the wonderful paintings from Holland's Golden Age.

here is John in front of het Maurits Huis, and another view of the Hague's inner city where the seat of government is:

We got back to the hotel at about 3pm to meet up with Maryse. At about 5pm we set of to this special restaurant to which Jolijn had invited us. It was in a lovely old house, and we were led through corridor after corridor all lined with cases of champagne. Good start we thought. We were led into a dining room with a large table bereft of any settings, through a kitchen into the room where the feast was to be. My brother, sister-in-law and Fred soon also arrived and we waited till the v Bs arrived in order to surprise them, although Jolijn of course knew we were there. And then he fun began, the chef welcomed us all and told us what the menu of 4 courses was to be, and then we are invited to select the course we would like to cook. Yes to cook, I have never been to a dinner party in a restaurant were I had to cook my own dinner. But a lot of fun was had by all and as there were about 12-14 cooks who each chose a course it wasn't too onerous, we even had aprons and chef hats. And I even learnt how to chop chives in restaurant style. Only you need very sharp pointed knives, the chef even said if I did this for a week or so I would soon be proficient. The meal was great, lots of lovely wine, laughter and jokes as well as superb food. To think all cooked by us.

As it was also my birthday my sisters gave me a special birthday present: a walking stick with about 12 little strips of special dates of my life on it. I wondered if they felt I needed this in particular at this time in my life. Also it wasn't easy to get it back to the UK as I was told at the check-in desk that I wouldn't be allowed to go on board with it, and as it was too long to fit in the suitcase I was advised they might let me on if I walked as if I needed it, so I practised all the way to the plane. It must of worked as nothing was said and I got it home okay.

Before that on Sunday we mooched about again in the Hague at the flea and antiques' market, and in the morning we went to Scheveningen, to the sea side and we walked through this magnificent hotel, pure 1900, we kept expecting elegant Edwardian ladies in large hats sitting about having tea. But alas they were all gone so we walked on to the promenade, where thousand of dutch people were enjoying themself in the sunshine or line dancing.

Next day we took the train to Bussum to my brother's house were we stayed for 2 days. It rained a lot but as well in the evening the sun came out and we could enjoy my sis-in-law's wonderful garden. Here are a few pix to show you. wonderful agapanthus, and a white one at that, my niece Laurentine and another view of the garden
we in particular liked the Lutchen's seat.
Alas the 5 days came to an end on Wednesday when we flew home, arrived about 3.30 pm in time to fetch the Jellies from their kennels. And were they overjoyed to see us, we were licked to an inch of our livesit appeared though they had been quite happy in the kennels. Which is lucky as they will be going pretty soon again.
Well that is it will continue on Monday. So bye bye for now.

Well, well its no longer boohoo, rather hip hip

Actually I don't want to hooray too much as I have lost all faith in this Mesh. But to update it finally was returned to me on the 10th July, Louise' s birthday. Maybe it was a present from her to me via the Mesh people. No, I think it was because of the 2nd stinking letter I sent to the manager which really gave results. They then bend over backwards to get the Mesh back to me. They even paid extra for the courier to deliver before 10 am. And it did come, well 10 past 10. So this is what arrived:

June hurried over to help me after I unpacked it, they even included the new wireless keyboard. But that also caused problems, it took ages and another call to the repair centre at base. Luckily Kumar who had been finally in charge and who had expedited everything, was available after some throwing about of weight and he talked us through it. Hopefully we will be able to do the same when the batteries run out and new ones replaced. But at June's prompting everything we did was written down in my little book.

It is now nearly a week and it is behaving itself. I have installed several of my programs, one of the first was AOL so we could get back on the Internet. After that my new Microsoft Office 2007 which is really great although it has taken me some time on a learning curve. It is so brilliant that it takes me twice as long as I have to find where everything is. Its quite different to Microsoft XP Office, but no doubt like XP itself after a while I will have no more problems; it should be rather intuitive.

So I will sign off like this and keeping my fingers crossed.