Hot Hot Hot in Holland

So on Wednesday morning, I ran around getting our packing done - trying to pack as little as possible but make sure we have everything for a day in the city and 2 days camping.  Being British I wanted to take raincoats, but Chananja told me not too so I left them behind.

Our plane

Once I thought I had it all sorted, we headed into the village to meet up with Susan, Harrison, Alfie and the two girls for a play in the park.  Tom, Alfie and Harrison were straight to it - having boys own adventures, collecting blackberries.  It was lovely to see.

At 12, we said goodbye and headed to Bernies to meet Matt for lunch.  Baked beans for me, fish fingers, chips and beans for Tom and soup for Matt.  Tom and I then packed up the car and headed for the airport.  We passed lots of traffic jams going the opposite way to us, but were unaffected and made good time.  We breezed through check-in and actually had time to do a little bit of shopping and watch planes etc.  The airport was pretty busy - finding two seats together was difficult but we got there in the end.

Our flight boarded early, then we sat on the tarmac for ages, but we arrived in Schipol on time so can't complain.  It was hot, Hot, HOT!  I felt like we had been on a long-haul flight to Asia - the heat and humidity hit us big time as we walked off the plane.  It was over 30 degrees.  It's nuts when you think about it - we are only 300 miles from each other!  We had to negotiate a huge, HUGE passport queue before we collected our bag and headed into the concourse looking for Chananja and Raimo.  Didn't see them at first, think they had found a seat, getting bored of looking for us.

We then headed to the bus stops to get a bus back to their place.  Problem - there was no bus - the last one had already left!  Chananja ended up having to call her neighbour to come and collect us - oops!  Never mind, everyone was good humoured about it.

Think we got to Chananja's around 9.15pm, Raimo and Tom then started playing nerf guns - in fact they were playing immediately, the language barrier was none existent!  Ramio and Tom went to bed at 10pm, whilst we stayed up chatting until past 1 in the morning.

Dam Square

It was a very hot, sweaty night - I didn't sleep that well, sweating, sweating, sweating.  Tom did better - we were sharing a double bed - he was out for the count when I joined him and didn't move all night.  I wish I could do that!

On the Canalbike

Typical Amsterdam Scene

We got up late in the morning - think it was past 8.30am, then organised ourselves for the next 3 days - we are going camping, had breakfast (bread, cheese, celeriac salad and crab salad).  Tom tried Raimo's breakfast of choice: bread and butter with chocolate sprinkles and failed - it was too sweet for him.  He reverted to just bread and butter.  Oh and it was hot, Hot, HOT again - over 30 degrees.  It was going to be a hot sweaty day.

Driver not looking where she is going!

We packed the car and headed to Osdorp (Chananja's old stamping ground) where she parked the car, near to a sushi restaurant where we were going to have an early tea.  We then got a tram (Tom was very excited) to Dam Square - to see the palace etc.  The plan for the day was to go canal biking.  I thought that meant biking along the canals, but it meant getting a pedalo and cycling it around the canals.  Great fun, and lovely to see the city from a different point of view.  First of all we had to find from where to get the pedalo.  We walked down some main streets to Leidseplein where we eventually found the right place. We then pedalled around the canals. We took it in turns: Chananja and Raimo, then me and Tom (Tom having to almost sit on the floor to be able to reach the pedals) and then me and Chananja. I had no idea about navigation and left it to Chananja, my steering was pretty shocking too, but the experience was fab, and with the sun shining the city was looking very handsome.

I Amsterdam

Clogs!

Nik & Tom 'a' Amsterdam

It was hot, Hot, HOT though so sweaty work. After an hour we had got ourselves to the Rijksmuseum and dropped off the boat and picked up an ice-cream each. How do you know when it is hot? Tom has an ice-cream and he did. We walked through the Rijksmuseum and found ourselves in a park with an 'I Amsterdam' and a huge paddling pool. We headed straight to the paddling pool and all got in. It felt so so so so good to have cool water lapping around our legs. Once refreshed and recovered, we headed to Vondelpark which we walked through to Surinameplein where we got the tram back to Osdorp and the sushi restaurant. By now Tom was beside himself with tiredness and heat. We had been constantly drinking all day, but he hadn't ate much (my mistake I think). We sat down and ordered our sushi - but Raimo's arrived first and Tom could not comprehend that Raimo could have some and he couldn't - we had full on tears! We were all a little stunned, Raimo generously handed some of his over for Tom to eat - but there was no placating him - he had gone past the point of no return. Once some sushi had gone in, Tom settled down and enjoyed himself - he managed to eat more than me - ordering one more round than me. It was good stuff too - I think Matt would enjoy this place.

Cooling down

Once we had all finished, we walked back to the car, bought yet more drinks and then headed across Holland to the campsite where Chananja's parents have a caravan. It was a 2.5 hour hot drive. We arrived at 8.15, said a quick hello to Chananja's parents and put the tent straight up as the daylight was ebbing away. Raimo and Tom went to bed whilst Chananja and I stargazed - just like being back in Australia again (don't think either of us would have predicted that this would happen 16 years down the line). A good, yet very hot and sweaty day.

Group shot

Not a great night's sleep - we were packed in like sardines in Chananja's tent. I was between Tom and Raimo and suffered from fingers up

Nice lake

Pleased with his bike

my nose, foot in my face, wriggles, elbows in my cheeks etc etc, as well as a lot of sweating. We got up quite late - around 8.30, did teeth etc and then headed to Piet and Dineke's for breakfast: fresh bread from the campsite bakery with cheese and ham - yummy. Tom went for bread and jam after not enjoying Raimo's breakfast of choice yesterday. We then went to collect some bikes - one for me and a small one for Tom. Tom was very excited. Bikes in Holland are very different to bikes in England. They are made for leisurely bike rides on the flat, not mountain biking up and down hills. Tom's, therefore, was very heavy. However, it had a luggage rack on the back and a stand. That was all that was needed. He was delighted. He HAD to have luggage each time we went out, he had to pedal everywhere on the campsite - even if it was just round the corner and he was in charge of the stand etc. They couldn't have chosen a better activity for him.

In the morning, we cycled through some heather moorland to a lake where the boys did some pond dipping and Tom tried to swim. (He failed though, it was too shallow for swimming). The lake was surrounded by sand. There were only a few other families there. It was a lovely, idyllic place. Dineke and Raimo spent the whole time pond dipping - Tom dipped in and out but really got into it by the end. They both had a good bucket full of bugs.

A good haul

Pond dipping

We cycled back to the campsite for lunch: bacon and eggs on bread - very nice too. We then got in the cars and headed out to Dwingelderveld National Park, which is the largest wet heathland of Western-Europe.  The heather was out as well - so it was shining purple in the sunshine.  We went to a viewpoint and then the visitor centre where we got more pond dipping equipment - need to brush up on my pond insects as the Dutch names on the identification sheets were nothing like English ones.

After a look around a butterfly garden, we then headed back to the campsite where Tom, Raimo and I jumped into the very cold pool for a swim.  It was lovely - instant relief from the hot, sweaty days we have been experiencing - but it was very cold!  We spent a while playing piggie in the middle.  I managed to escape to dry off but was made to return to the pool for another session.

BBQ

Chef

After that we got dried and dressed and headed to Dineke's and Piet's for a BBQ dinner.  I knew this was coming my way.  AND I knew it would be big.  They believe in over catering, nothing would be worse than running out of food.  They knew that I have lost a lot of weight, and were on a mission to fatten me up again.  There was no point trying to fight it - so I was a good guest and ate everything I was given.  It was all good food - just lots of it - and all meat and carbohydrates, not much in the way of vegetables, although there was a fruit salad.  My stomach was screaming by the end of it!

Very happy cyclists

By the end of dinner, both boys were playing up so we decided to call it a day and put them to bed early.  We cycled back to our tent and they went to bed.  It took almost 2 hours for them to go to sleep - every excuse in the book was made to avoid falling asleep.  They worked in shifts as well: it was almost as if they planned it.  In the end Chananja had a word with Tom and they went quiet and went to sleep.  Phew - should have done that much earlier!  

Me and two boys

I spent another night being attacked by Tom in his sleep - oh joy! He was so deeply asleep, I couldn't wake him up or reason with him! We were up earlier and made our 8.30 breakfast appointment - more buns with cheese and ham. Then we headed out on a 17km bike ride in the Heather moorland. It was beautiful - we had forest, sand, flat land, nice farm houses, horses, sheep, everything - and all in the sunshine. It was lovely. Tom was delighted to be on his bike again - he had Soffie Bear as his luggage - so I was on duty to check he was ok. He also got the hang of being on the other side of the road very well and was looking in the right direction almost immediately. For him it wasn't the destination, it was the journey!

Riding a horsey

Great swimming games

We got back and had lunch - more buns with cheese, ham and egg and then after some quiet time, trying to get some diary work out of Tom (not very successfully) we went for a swim. I decided to bow out this time. Raimo and Tom were pretty happy playing a water polo type game for a while.

Eating ice cream - it must be hot!

After more ice-creams we called it a day at the pool and returned to Dienke and Piet's. The boys then played football solidly for the rest of the afternoon - they were very very hot, but didn't care. In fact they spent every spare minute playing football. Chananja was nervous because Raimo's knees are liable to 'go' at any moment, causing him pain, but luckily they didn't and they were having fun. Neither of them get to go on holiday with other children, so they were relishing the opportunity for games the whole time.

Great friends

We had another BBQ for tea - some left over food from last night and some. I did good and ate up again. We then headed back to Amsterdam - it was another hot, sweaty ride. Both boys fell asleep which was a blessing - they were so so tired, they needed it. We got back around 8.30pm. We did a quick FaceTime chat with Matt and I chucked Tom in a shower (he's come out with a rash which I think is a heat rash) and put him straight to bed. Chananja and I tried to stay up a little longer - but we were both exhausted as well and gave up and crashed.

Football camp

Tired!

I had a slightly better night, although it was still hot, Hot, HOT! Got up at 8am, packed quickly and were on our way to the airport at 9. Checked in - had an argument with KLM - they wanted 35 Euros from me to put my case in the hold. It was free from Manchester? No-body could explain why. There was no mention of being charged for hold luggage on my paperwork. I might as well have flown Easyjet - I thought you could escape that with a scheduled service! But that was that - it was 35 Euros or take the case on as hand luggage. Hand luggage it was then! I gave Chananja all my liquids (they were worth much less than 35 Euros). We then had lunch - pancakes for the boys (with the shape of an airplane made from icing sugar and sprinkles for them to play with) a cheese and mushroom pancake for me (well we are in the land of pancakes) and some sandwiches for Chananja. Then it was time to say goodbye and head to security and passport control. More queues - my small bag got searched this time because there were loose coins in it (I had had to take them out of a plastic bag so I could put my small liquids in it!) A quick look around the shops and then to the gate. We boarded on time but were delayed because...people had too much hand luggage with them - there wasn't enough room for it all - so some had to go in the hold!!!!!! I mean really, I hope they got fined for missing their time slot!!

Airplane pancake

Other than that we had a good trip back, it was nice and cool in Manchester - 21 degrees, felt lovely and refreshing. Drove back along the motorway and to Ingleton. Matt wasn't here as he was playing cricket - well supposed to be - it got cancelled due to a dangerous pitch. He pitched up about half an hour after we arrived home.

Wow - what a holiday. It was only 3 days, but we packed so much in. Thank you to Chananja and her family for being such great hosts and arranging so many great things to do. Much appreciated. Until next time...