Queen's Day!

 Special Queen's Day celebrations today! This is the last Queen's day in The Netherlands. The Queen abdicates this morning.

 Then The Netherlands will have a King!

King Willem-Alexander

Next year we'll be celebrating

 King's Day on April 27th!

Have a great sunny, blue sky Queen's day!

Monday! Weeding!

Hope you can get out and enjoy today!

 Good Morning! Great that you dropped by!

 Are you up for a walk around a garden in Vinkega?

 There will be great Hostas growing here!

 And here!

Enjoying the sun through fresh Spring green! 

 Sometimes it's all in a name!

 Garden art!

 Looks great so far!

 Would you like to see more?
Then check out:  Bed and Breakfast !
Definately a Hosta place to visit this Summer!
Wishing you a gardening kind of Sunday!

 Good Morning! With a bit of rain and warm weather that we've had,  take a look at what's shooting up out of the ground! Guess what else will be active at the same time! The evening rounds of slug patrol duty should begin! Tonight!

 Hosta Sum and Substance!

 "Some people look for a beautiful place, 

Others make a place beautiful!"

 "If I had a flower for every time

 you made me smile and laugh,

 I'd have a garden to walk in forever!"

 "Plants give us oxygen for the lungs and for the soul."

"The future belongs to those

 who believe in the beauty of their dreams!"

Enjoy your day!

Zen and "Soep Groenten"

Good Morning! 21C and a sunny afternoon yesterday! A good day to be out weeding! While spending the afternoon on my hands and knees, enjoying the first "working outside in only a short sleeved t-shirt" weather, rose pruning season is finished and Climbing Ivy is under control for a while, I thought about writing a book! One book would be called "The Zen of Weeding"! Then I thought about a different book. That would be called "101 ways to use soep groenten without making soup"! Maybe I should write both! They might be completed by the end of the summer! LOL! Hope you are off to a great start to the weekend!

Inspiration!

Congratulations Ann! She's the winner of The Great British Sewing Bee! Well done! The tailor made mans shirt made in 4 hours, a hand decorated purse in 1 1/2 hours and a "formal wear" dress in a day were all beautifully made with such care to detail! Ann's 81! And now she has just made her first quilt! Now that's inspiration! Hope you can find a bit of inspiration in your day! "I cannot count my day complete til needle, thread, and fabric meet!" not quite, but sometimes!

13 and 11!

 Thirteen years ago today, I moved to The Netherlands! 13 years! Where has the time gone? Time must go faster as the years go by!  This Blog sure makes looking back over the last few years easier to see what we have done! And have you seen what we've accomplished together? Thanks to you, dear Friends and Family, for  taking this journey with me, here, over the years! I've never regretted the move!

A sunrise on another milestone!
It's our 11th wedding anniversary! 

Time to go out and enjoy the day! With sunglasses!

"A good life is a collection of happy moments!"

Sometimes...

 Do you ever have mornings...? a start to the day that gets under your skin? It was one of those mornings....I heard something that really irritated me. How opinionated can one get? I was not amused. Good thing I had a full active day planned! Gardening in the misty rain was a great way to start the day! Mud, weeding, planting! Then went shopping for ingredients!  Look! There's Chocolate Biscoff(Speculoos) spread! If this hits Blog land and all the Biscoff Spread lovers over in Canada and America, think of the possibilities! And those Rolo's? They will be going, along with the Biscoff-chocolate spread, into an adjusted by me Brownie recipe later this week!

 And Kit Kat! That will be used to decorate a cake for a festive occasion! Might have to create one just to make it! 

 Cheered up after all this? I sure am! And after a fun Tuesday afternoon, who wouldn't be! And look at how fast the Hostas are growing!

 Feels great just to stroll around my own garden!

 Did you know...  that in 364 days The Dutch Hosta Society will be celebrating their 25th anniversary?

And don't forget that tonight's the Finals of the Great British Sewing Bee on BBC!  What a day! Time to celebrate because tomorrow's another day! I hope your day ends on a positive note! 

Good Monday Morning!

 "Life is to be enjoyed, not just endured!"

 "Do what you like, like what you do!"

 Time to join me for a cup of tea?

"One meter of fabric, like one cookie,

is never enough!"

Enjoy your day!

Chocolate on a Sunday!

Good Morning! Thought I'd start the day baking this morning and this time Blog the recipe! This one is called "Seven Layer Bars" ! But, like many recipes that pass through time, and this kitchen, there are many adaptations and alterations! 

 First, make a base. I use a blender to make fine crumbs from Digestive cookies. You need about 2 cups of crumbs. Mix the crumbs with what looks like half a cup of melted butter. Press into pan. Pour 1 can of Sweetened Condensed Milk over the top.

 Sprinkle the s.c.m. with about  1/2 of the 1 cup shredded coconut you might want to use. Then add a layer of the chocolate chunks. Today, it's 1/2 a bar white, 1 pure and 1 milk chocolate chocolate bar broken into pieces. You can add nuts but I'm not today! You can add a bar of chocolate-hazelnut ! That would be a great idea! Walnuts and pecans can too! The last layer is to sprinkle over the rest of the shredded coconut!  

Bake in a preheated 180C oven for about 20 minutes! Should smell like toasted coconut and look golden on top, like the photo! The sweetened condensed milk will bubble through! And while the oven is on, you might as well throw in a baking sheet full of scones! High Tea this afternoon is starting to look good!

"You can't buy happiness, but you can buy tea,

and that's kind of the same thing!"

Enjoy your Sunday!

Did you know that there are only 363 days left until the start of the new Handwork Hit Baarn in 2014? Here's a hint of one of the small activities that we will be doing! See you there!

Team Work!

 "Many hands make light work!"

Buitenzorg has made their own "carbon footprint neutral", eco friendly extra long pioneering poles! Just a few meters from where the tree was cut down, the new pole is now in use! This is great for the Scouting environmental project "Scenes"! Looks great!

 Here's a fun garden to watch this gardening season!

 We'll have to see how fast these Garden Knomes dissapear between all the different plants as they grow!

And, after a fun day outside, it's time for tea!

 Today is a great day to be outside as well ! After it warms up! 0C at the moment! Paintwork from yeserday can be sanded again! There were a few rain drops that fell on wet paint. More sandpaper! Hope you can enjoy a day out too!

What you don't want to hear!

 "It's good from a far, but far from good."

I like this quote!

You definitely don't want to hear that from someone else if you're a painter, artist, quilter, sewer, garden designer, and/or active in other creative endeavours! You might say it to yourself, about your own work of course! We all have those moments!
Sunny, dry, slight breeze! Great start to Friday! Paint day! Garden day! Hope you can enjoy it too!

A blustery Day!

 What a windy day! The wind gusts blew from every direction! A fun challenge in the gardens! Leaves blew every which way! I've never seen an empty large garden waste container being blown down the garden, until today!

 There were challenges on the roads as well! Read this!

Painting outside, grrrrr! That's a challenge! The wood was dry this morning! No dew! So, there I was, early this morning painting a top coat of "apple white" paint. Glad I wasn't around to watch the paint dry! LOL! When I came home there were quite a few bits stuck in the paint. Time enough to sand and try again tomorrow! Hope you were able to enjoy a bit of sun and wind! But drive carefully!

Inspiration!

 Inspiration from words!

 And inspiration from what someone can do!

She's 89 and still active in flower arranging!

 The challenge was to create a "Triangle, using white flowers"

And that she did!

Hope you can find a bit of creative inspiration today!