Celebrating 5 May Liberation Day - Bouncing Amsterdam

Impressions of the day as posted in pictures below:

 

Paper tulips at the Rijksmuseum shop

Trying to get a glimpse of Rembrandt's Night Watch

(I have seen it before with less people in front of it)

Frans Hals's milkmaid was very popular

Surprise, surprise: Breitner painted my greatgrandfather's regiment 'Gele Rijders'

You can get yourself a nice dress with the Night Watch on it in the museum shop

Amsterdam Style of the American Hotel

Champagne to celebrate yet another birthday!

Amsterdam is gorgeous in the spring time!

Dresses and handbags made from tea towels

Ajax soccer club won: 5-0 - madness all over town

Having to return by metro was quite an experience with all the football fans around

The bottom painting by Frans Hals was my favorite today

 

 www.iamsterdam.com

 

You guys out there - come to Amsterdam: there is so much happening this year!

The Rijksmuseum is a wonderful experience

I cannot count the times that I have boarded a canal boat: it remains a wonderful experience

 

 

30 April

It is 12:30, we are still watching TV.

So many wonderful moments, emotional ones also.

A life sacrificed to the nation, I am very impressed.

Orange roses  in a Delft blue vase on our breakfast table
 

Painting at the Exhibition 'Beeld van Beatrix', her morning dress today was purple

   

Traditional delicious cakes from the local bakery



My grandmother's commemorative mug on Queen Wilhelmina's anniversary  in my work room



Jugendstil motiv

 

The new generation! 

The floral arrangements are gorgeous, sorry for my blurry tv picture. 

Royal High Tea and 'Out of office'

Picture of Palace 'Het Loo' (from internet)

What fun it is to splash out on your birthday in a Royal environment!

The other day I invited a few people to visit the fabulous exhibition

'Beeld van Beatrix'

('Picture of Beatrix')

at the Palace 'Het Loo' at Apeldoorn

and to celebrate my birthday with a Royal High Tea afterwards.

We could not finish it all, it was delicious! Mind you, this picture is at the beginning of the Tea and more brought on to our table as time went on.

The visitors to the exhibition were invited to vote for the best creation. Incredibly difficult for me to choose. Forever the red white and blue (by Carla Rodenburg) at the bottom row is my favorite painting of the Queen, but the one to the left of it, made of pieces of thrift wood, and 3 dimensional, scores also very high with me. Click on the picture to have a closer look and to see how creative this is.

Every picture was so inspiring that it made me start on a painting of the Queen once back at home. I used a photograph of her last address to Parliament in September 2012, wearing a gorgeous flattering golden feather hat. The composition with the roses is so extraordinary. Once finished it will appear on here!

Beautiful floral arrangements and mirror walls reflecting the features of the Ball Room where we had High Tea. The Ball Room is a restaurant in the wing along the lawn in the top picture. A lovely secluded place and the sun shining happily that day!

Goodies on display in the Ball Room, for sale in the Museum Gift Shop. Temptations, temptations! I came home with a book on portrait paintings of Princess Juliana, a bottle of wine with a picture of the winning art creation 'Diplomacy'  and postcards. The picture of Queen Beatrix by Ellen Meuwese was sold out, alas. It is a lovely picture that in just a few paint brushes sketches her personality and  the way we know her.
We will toast to the Queen tomorrow with champagne and wil have an orange dinner, with the wine with the prize winning picture on it. A toast to the new King, of course, wishing him strength and wisdom to fulfill this extremely difficult job.
Needless to say we will be glued to the television, as we will not be going amongst the huge crowds, and not wanting to miss anything of the ceremony in Amsterdam. There are such interesting programs on television on historic moments we never heard or seen before.

Today is Queen's Beatrix last day 'in office'. Would she, like any modern being these days, fill in an 'out of office' in her computer? It is just a silly brain wave of mine.
Visiting the exhibition 'Beeld van Beatrix' (Picture of Beatrix) is impressive. The exhibition lingered on my mind until the next day, it made me really stand still and think about her life, devoted to what fate chose her for. We will miss her. I admire her greatly, as you have read on occasions in my previous posts.

A great big Thank You to Queen Beatrix and wishing her a healthy and happy time for the future! And of course a wonderful time 'out of office'!

This painting symbolizes to me the beginning of her retirement. Queen Beatrix is just a ribbon away from it: out of office, no more musts, only mays.

www.koninklijkhuis.nl

Yellow

Why is it that people do not like yellow in their garden and resist it so strongly?
There are many yellows in this garden. Every season holds its own tones of soft yellow in the spring  to vivid and bright yellow of Rudbeckia for instance in the late summer.

The Mahogany is dropping its flowers now, beautiful inkblue berries appearing in the summer. It is a spectacular plant, which gives a lot of body to where one plants it.

The greenish yellow of Alchemilla mollis, holding raindrops in its leaves in the summer, is apart from decorative in the garden so nice to mix in bouquets. The yellow rose Peau Douce has splendid huge flowers and is a true eye catcher at the side of our house. The row of Laburnum trees form a spectacular sight, and so do the yellow irisis in the pond. Yellow everywhere!
I just love all the yellows, both in flowers, herbs and weeds, but also in the leaves of many a shrub.
Last year I had a fight though with a yellow spring florishing shrub. A Kerria had started to wonder all over the place. Endless deep wandering roots were removed. I decided to deminish the Kerria complety. It is a strong plant and yes, more or less expected I discovered this week a tiny little twig peeping up. It will have to go, no chance of crawling further. The leaves of Kerria are fresh and delicate, also in a bouquet, but as a shrub I find the orange yellow a little too much.
On Friday it was a wonderful day for gardening - surprises appeared everywhere on removing the winter debris. A lot of competition going on, fox gloves have taken up a lot of space! Which plant will win?

A Dandelion seeded itself in the yellow Hosta last summer- I left it for a while as it was quite a sight in the middle of the big flower pot, it had a long stem and very long leaves because of the competition with the Hosta I guess?

No, I could not live without the radiance of it, sunshine yellow, or any yellow in my garden.

Grey skies, twelve hours daylight, and snow again

Gulls are swarming by, by the window, fighting over the old bread that was thrown out for the birds this morning at the kitchen door. Inside the dog jumps up and barks because he finds they are intruding his peace and quiet, and his territory. It is a beautiful sight - the gulls and the dog.

 

Dogs days of winter, the snow has returned. Northeasternly wind, which makes it bitterly cold. Time for indoor activities. For the very first time in my life I made pea soup this morning. The kitchen is in a mess. My food processor gave up. Although I thought I was making 2 litres of soup, I had to move it to a pan for 5 litres of soup. Once it was all done it went back to a pan for 3 litres, pushing it through a seive and the left overs in a small magimix. Splashes of soup and kitchen utensils all over the place. It will not be soon that I will do this again, how tidious. It is easier to buy it ready made, although I must admit: it tastes good!

 

Twigs I gathered along my riverwalk last week are waiting on the g,arden table, together with a huge bunch of what came off the top of one of the trees, to be made up into an Easter arrangement, similar to the one I saw at the floral shop in 's Hertogenbosch the other day.

 

I guess this afternoon. after my walk in the snow with the dog. I shall have a go at my knitting: a spring jacket that needs to be finished. Difficult because I shall have a go at circular needles which I have never learnt how to use. Any teacher out there to help me out?

 

 

 

 

The heart shaped oil lamp was a gift last year from my creative neighbour girl friends. It waits for better times and outdoor life in the garden. There is the promiss of spring though, the thick buds of the purple rhododendron, the colour of so many early spring flowers. 

  

 

  

The elm trees have lost there twigs on Monday, they look like dancers, like candalabers in a way, an Indian god with so many arms. Very forceful trees, in the summer they will be one huge 'hedge on legs' and form a very secluded garden.

On Monday we could sit out and have coffee in the sun. Well, not today - off to my knitting and a bit of home made pea soup. Don't you think it looks more like porridge?





 

On posting this I realized there is a very old cookbook around the house, possibly my greatgrandmother's? A hundred years old definitely, with very old Dutch spelling, falling apart and no front or back cover to it, well used. The Dutch alone is amusing as such, but so is the recipe. When I have a moment I shall make a less foggy picture and will give a translation. So, do come back!

 

Sunshiny Sunday

Today's surprises during a walk along the river and in the garden.

 

Such a huge difference with last Sunday!

 

I worked hard in the garden today, tomorrow our elm trees will be trimmed. The bird which built a nest in the top of one of them will not be happy ...  

The garden will turn into one huge pile of twigs, the noise of the shredder will be outrageous.

The lawn is full with crocusses and snowdrops, the longer I look the more I see. Maybe in the morning I shall put flower pots over some groups of them? It will be such a pity if they get trodden on. A good lesson, next year I must have this work done earlier, or in autumn.

My body aches of all the bending and stretching, the birds loved me for removing leaves and finding plenty to eat. Ladybirds still hiding and appearing here and there. It is not time to clean up everything yet but in autumn I let the garden go to sleep and leave it as it is. This is just a 'rough' beginning of my gardening.
The biggest surprise was the blooming chaenomeles along the river, the trees above reflecting in the water. Later on the sun lit up the very first flowers of the helleborus, which were given as little seedlings from my neigbour. It took them two years to get into flower.

 

 

With love, from Amsterdam

 

 

Delicious chocolates from van Soest Chocolatier in the Utrechtsestraat, Amsterdam.
The white chocolate rose is stuck in dark chocolates at the bottom. The box with hearts and roses was screaming from the window 'take me away'! What a lovely gift box!

 

 

 

Delicacies made byPatisserie Kuyt, Utrechtsestraat, Amsterdam.

You really have to zoom in on the heart shaped mouthwatering centerpiece surrounded by macarons! 

 

 

 Vintage Valentine Card and booklet filled with Valentine poems,

sent to my family in 1960 by LeeAnn who spent time with us on an exchange program of the American Field Service. I think it was the first time I was introduced to the phenomenon 'Valentine'. At the time I was a teenager and found it all so fascinating.

The lace is a bit torn, a little treasure and held on to!

 

Happy Valentine! 

 

 

Heart shaped leaves of our willow trees, I so love their shape, big size and colour.

This picture I use as my ID on this blog.

 

Mary, of the blog The Little Red House has a theme up for this week on 'Love'.

I am joining her with this post.

 

 



King Winter returned

 

The other day I thouht King Winter had departed, his farewell tears dropping into the pond. But he returned and this is what our garden looked like yesterday. During the night it looked so wonderful I almost got out to take pictures, there is so much fascination in the fact the whole world is white all of a sudden. The pictures are taken early in the morning and around noon. The sky turned from grey to radiant blue, gulls and geese filling the sky. In the garden the small birds find plenty to eat underneath the hedges and the dead leaves.

Don't you think our fire place is a wonderful piece of craftmanship? It is more than one meter high and made of wrought iron.

 

 

This is what I saw on the 5th, last week's surprise, the first crocusses and beautiful magnolia buds. It really makes your heart jump when you discover them.