On my own!

This is what I found when I walked in to the hallway today, after she got away from me from about 10 seconds.
2 days before her birthday and she can't walk yet, but climbing stairs is no problem!



Time to take some anti climbing measures me thinks. :)

Why, who and what?

I read this list of questions on ~J's blog, and she passed them on to me. Time for some answers!

1. Why did you start blogging? A way to let people I don't speak or email often enough know what's going on in my life. Reality is that only people who also blog read my blog, hehe. But it's still fun to write some things down!

2. Which blogs do you follow? I'm going to borrow ~J's answer, and say: I like to blog-hop. Read blogs form the people I follow, and move on to blogs they follow.

3. What are you favorite colors? For a blog? Blue, black (no, not a color). Mixed with some grey, yellow and red? Yea...something like that. :)

4. What are you favorite movies? Big Lebowski, Shawshank Redemption, Star Wars trilogy, LoTR Trilogy, Donnie Darko, Kill Bill. You get the idea.

5. What country do you dream of visiting? Can't name just one....Cuba, Iceland, Japan. For starters.

Now anyone who reads this and blogs: be my guest and post them on your own blog! Uh...with your own answers of course. ;)

Fasted pasta ever, so I thought I'd share it with you:



Needed;
* About 400gr of assorted mushrooms. Some Chanterelles, white and "kastanje" mushrooms, etc. Anything (eatable) you can get your hands on really.
* 1 chili, finely cut up.
* Clove of Garlic, finely cut up.
* Handful of Parsley
* A hand full of grated Parmesan
* Juice from 1/2 lemon
* Some olive oil
* A little butter.

Cut up the mushrooms, and bake them in a little olive oil. Throw in the garlic and the chili after about a minute or 2 and bake the mushrooms for another 2-3 min. Season with some salt and freshly ground pepper. Turn of heat, and put in the lemon juice, and mix well, just toss it around.

Meanwhile the pasta will be ready because you will have put this on before you started this....;)

Add the pasta to the mushrooms, and add the parsley, some of the Parmesan, and a little butter. Mix well, and eat! You can sprinkle over some parsley and Parmesan on the plate, to improve looks. :)

Now there's no meat or fish in there....but I still liked it. :P I do however think this will taste really good will some diced baked bacon. Or baked diced bacon even. I'll try that variation soon. :)

Thanks to Nigella Lawson and Jamie Oliver. They both have a similar recipe, and I combined the 2.

House, part...uhm....

More things done! Summary: kitchen, hallway, and staircase. As the saying goes: pictures say more than a thousand words!

This:



Became this:



And the kitchen went from this:


To this:


to this!


As for the staircase....you guessed it, work in progress. My people are on it. ;)

La France

Holiday season is here! Or...almost over actually. This year we decided to go to France.
Or rather: J decided, and I agreed. I've never been a great fan of France, or the French for that matter. Perhaps it is more the French then France, because the scenery is really nice.
We decided on a place called Salieu, about 60km W of Dijon in the "Bourgogne" (Burgundy). Very pretty place, quite green and slightly mountainous. We teamed up with some friends of ours who also have a little daughter and rented a little house as a home base for discovering the vicinity.
Visiting castles, little (mostly farming) villages, lakes for swimming, hiking....you know the "summer holiday drill". The of course there's the good and cheap wines. We tasted, tested, approved and discarded. And took about 5 boxes home with us. Let's get started on that wine cellar! :)













Another fun thing we arranged while we were there was a "frech" cooking lesson. You can never learn enough about cooking! Now the cook in question had his own restaurant for years, and is now retired. And in his spare time he still cooks with his friend Bernard Loiseau. Ow, who happens to have his own 3 Michelin star restaurant. Details. We thought about have having a bite to eat there, but dinner was about 150-200€ p.p, excluding drinks. A little steep.
Anyway, our chef made us a great meal, with Escargots, duck, fish....yum. I tried writing down the recipes, so perhaps material for a future blog entry. Stay tuned. ;)

Soooo, to sum things up:
2 weeks in France was fun, yet didn't really make me change my mind. Lol.
But I'm afraid this is not based on anything specific.....call it a gut feeling. ;)

Perhaps I can get away with a holiday destination a little more northern next year....more my kind of people. ;)

Veggie-power!

WHAT!? Scary stuff. And what's worse: I like cucumbers! And Lettuce. And tomatoes.

Only one thing left do do: grown my own! ;)
From this:
To this:
And with the help of these:
I hope to harvest some of my own veggies later this year. Ok, that won't make us self sufficient, but I expect it's gonna be lot's of fun! :)

Commemorate or celebrate?

"Op 4 mei herdenken we, op 5 mei vieren we onze vrijheid"
Or in English: on may 4th we commemorate, on May 5th we celebrate.

Every year on the 4th of May at 20:00 (most) people in Holland take a few minutes of silence to think about all the people who suffered in the 2nd WW. There's a national memorial service, services at all the WWII burial grounds and so on. Just 2 minutes of silence to make sure that -as the over-patriotic Americans would say- "we shall not forget".
Anyway, I personally always take a minute to remember how easy our life is compared to that of my grandparents.
Meet my gandpa (second from the right):
This was taken in the POW camp Stalag XIA, 1943, near Altengrabow.
Like I said, it's good to stop and realize our life is pretty damn good.
And I'm starting to sound sentimental. ;)

On May 5th 1945 the German General Blazkowitz signed the capitulation act in Hotel "de Wereld" in our little city of Wageningen. This was done after negotiations with Lieutenant-General C. Foulkes of the 1st Canadian Army, and in the presence of his royal highness Prince Bernhard. Actually, it was signed on May 6th, but hey. Historical details. ;)
For this reason, every year on May 5th, Wageningen turns in to one big celebration. If there is 1 day a year you should visit Wageningen, this is probably it. Music, food, drinks: excellent!

And the 2 minutes of silence of the day before have already been forgotten. Until next year. :)

Here are some pics I took may on 4th this year.

Pwetty fwowers!

We got the key to our house last year July, and by then the garden was a jungle (it still is) and we had no idea what plants had been planted whatsoever. This year, we get to experience the whole blooming season from the start, and to our surprise, flowers keep popping up all over the place! The old lady that lived here before really put in an effort, thanks! :)

Kazakhstan, glorious nation?

Kazakhstan it is! Or was. I went there to give a few people a crash course in maritime meteorology. I thought I'd prepared rather well, I wrote all the course material, make a nice book with all the reading and handouts, got my visa in order: check!
NOT! When I arrived in Atyrau, the customs guy looked at me and said: this is a 3. (as in March). Uh...no, it's a 5 (May) I replied. "No. 3. *stamp*. Heee.....hey man! Wait a minute! But he wouldn't have it. What do you think it is?



He had just stamped my passport so that I had to leave Kazakhstan in 5 days. Great. That cut my visit short by a few days, perfect. :(
That was not only problematic for my "teaching schedule", it's also kinda unprofessional not to have your stuff in order. Even if it's not your fault. I asked around, but there was no changing it. Penalty for leaving the country late is at least 1 day in jail, and a fine. Naah....I'll pass.

The course went ok, but it was kind of hard to figure out if they really "got"
the material. their English wasn't very good, and apparently it is impolite to argue with someone who knows the material. All they did was nod violently to indicate everything was clear and understood. That could mean I'm either very good, or they we're in fact being polite. To test them, I said two sentences in Dutch.......and they kept nodding. :( Ah well, I'll just assume their Dutch was very good as well. ;)

Kazakhstan became independent in 1991. I think since then, the only investments being made are by foreign businesses. The local architecture suffers significantly, it doesn't look like everybody get's their fair share, shall we say. In any case, I think the "glorious" part originates from at least a few decades ago. That being said, I hear the eastern part is quite beautiful. The west isn't. See for your self:


Ice fishing on the river.


The bridge from Asia to Europe (or vice vera)


Kazakhstan New Years celebrations


Renovation started! And abandoned years ago....


Glory days have been and gone.


Perhaps some paint?


On my way home.....quicker then expected.

High water

Large amounts of melting snow, combined with significant rainfall have caused the water level in the rivers Rhine and Waal to increase.....big time! The dikes dams etc are able to hold off water up to 17.65m, while the max river height this year is "only" 15.35m. So apart from some flooded cellars and some isolated houses, there is no real harm done. But it does give us some good photo opportunities. :)