Huub is 50

Rene's older brother was 50 this week. The family had one daughter and three sons. This picture was taken at our wedding dinner - the two silver napkin rings were a great look. An enlarged photo of this very picture was posted at the end of Huub's street by Claartje and Jack, his Dutch based siblings. One thing I noticed in The Netherlands was the very public announcing of family events - like birthdays, births, graduations etc. It's very lovely indeed.

Please click on the picture (left) and read the text. Brilliant!

Married 24 hours

A whole 24 hours had passed by when this photo was taken at New Year's Eve in Utrecht. The wedding rings still looked shiny and new. Believe it or not, kissing in public is still kind of strange for us both. We are kind of shy I guess.

NYE Utrecht

I forgot to post some pictures from the New Year's Eve party at former neighbours in Utrecht. They arrived while I was still away and sort of got forgotten in the rush to settle back into routine. It was truly lovely to see everyone there, and this was just 24 hours after the wedding. We'd already left the honeymoon suite that noon, travelled by train to Utrecht, checked into our apartment, seen friends at our favourite cafe, been to the beginning of a party at friend's home, then on to this dinner by 8:30pm. We both had a ball, but were truly exhausted by 1:30am. Yes, we went to bed early for New Year's Eve, but I think we had a good excuse.

May Day Weekend

Rene and I have both been enjoying a relaxing long weekend, the second in a fortnight - the last weekend was Anzac Day.

It has been nice relaxing on the new sun lounge out on the deck now that the temperatures have come down a bit.

The wooden tulips in the vase in the foyer downstairs come from the airport at Schipol. We had one from Rene's sister and brother in law from 2008, so we thought we'd add ten more on this trip.

The koala here was photographed last Friday at Australia Zoo on the Sunshine Coast. I went there with a lot of Airport Ambassadors just to familiarise ourselves with the layout. It is most impressive, and I can imagine how tourists would find the whole place fascinating.


My entire blog has been printed by a company in the US (well, I'm not sure exactly where, since it was freighted from Belgium). It is in three volumes and covers 2007 (Jan) up to 2010 (Mar) and is of great significance to me, but I'm guessing to nobody else. It has documented significant events in the recent lives of both Rene and myself and has been very interesting reading. Of course, it is all here online...but a hard copy is lovely for me, personally.

We have also just had printed a photo album of our recent wedding. There are two copies, and one will be winging its way to The Netherlands very soon. It ought to arrive here this week (we received notification of its departure from the printery at the end of last week).

We're at the end of a very short update, but with 10 shirts to iron plus dusting and vacuuming to be done before we have three visitors for dinner (one is from Japan), there is little time left. Simple dinner of Portugese chicken (BBQ'd), lamb cutlets, potatoes, green beans, corn on the cob and salad. Finish up with triple chocolate ice cream with raspberry sauce plus copious quantities of great Australian wine and you have the perfect end to a Labour Day Weekend. Hope yours was terrific too!