Things I Saw This Weekend...

• A man with a floor-length dread-lock beard and a woman carrying a ginormous “Lottery Winner” style cheque at Schiphol airport.

• Idiots Abroad posing in over-sized clogs at every corner.

• Enough Gouda cheese to feed the world’s population of mice for a decade and then some!

• And a trillion, beautiful blooming bulbs of every colour at the Keukenhof Gardens.

Yes, I finally got to see the beautiful spring tulips in The Netherlands on a day trip this weekend... some of you may recall that a pesky Icelandic volcano (or more accurately, its accursed ash cloud!) that grounded flights across Europe put paid to my original plans to go Dutch back in 2010. 

It's taken me three years to get my act together and make the quick hop over on the stupid o'clock "Squeezy Jet" flight to Amsterdam, nab the Keukenhof Express bus from Schiphol and spend the day sleep-deprived and tanked up on strong black coffee and sugary waffles, but surrounded by Mother Nature at her most awesome.

Just 771 photos to sort through first before I can share some of them with you all... and there are still loads from my South African trip too. I'd best get cracking...

Ray Of Light....

Faith is the strength by which a shattered world shall emerge into the light.
Helen Keller 

Life's A Beach....

Naturally, as we rented a holiday house by the ocean, quite a lot of our time was spent messing about on the beach! Here's a random selection of the dozens upon dozens of beachy photos that I took....

Things I Learnt On My South African Holiday...

No matter where I travel in the world, and what wondrous sights I behold, there is nothing quite like the first full glimpse of Table Mountain as we get close to Cape Town! It always brings a huge rush of nostalgia, good memories and happy thoughts to me....

Renting a huge holiday house by the ocean and getting your family and friends to join you there is a great way of catching up with everyone without dashing around the country or putting pressure on family to accommodate you.

Feeding 12 people takes more than 5 loaves and 2 fishes, but it's great fun to get everyone involved in the preparation, especially my little nephews!

The beaches of Plettenberg Bay are just perfect for clocking up the miles on my Half Moon Walk Training Plan....

Central Beach

The early beach walker finds the pretty pansy shells....

Pansy shells!

Good friends are those whom you can go for years without seeing, then when you do meet up again, it's as if you've never been away. You pick up the conversation from where you left off....

My brave, dashing husband's spider removal techniques work really well on scorpions too! Not one but two scorpions in as many days decided to join our already quite full holiday house party...

Freezing cold water is not going to stop me from making the most of the chance to go swimming in the pool every day....

Pool with a view

Or the ocean!

Positively Antarctic!