First I would like to share with you a really nice photo I found of Oma Kuipers and I when we still lived in Holland.  I think it's special because it's a bit of an informal shot and you can see Oma is enjoying the moment whereas most photos of her are quite serious and not too much smiling involved (which I think you would find with a lot more older people).

I had a really nice day today with two of my cousins, Frea and Irma (daughters of Tante Roely Mum's sister and Oom Gerrit).

Tom (Irma's son), Irma, me and Frea

Frea came to pick me up at about 9.30am and we drove for about 1 1/4 hours to Irma's house in Nijkerk (in the Gelderland district - so far I've been mainly in the Overijjsel district).  It was really nice to see them for the day, especially because Frea came to Australia about 20 years ago and Irma came about 14 years ago.  Irma went specially to the shop to buy some frikendels which we had for lunch (very yummy with plenty of mayo, curry sauce and raw onion)!  I had mentioned that I hoped to find another old Dutch cookbook (Tante Roely had already given me one with quite a few recipes in it) and Irma remembered seeing one in Kringloop (like a second hand shop).  We actually found 2 more and I got them for 50c.  Watchout Steve and kids, lots of different types of stampots coming up!!

In the later afternoon, Frea and I drove back to her home in Hellendorn.  She lives in a nice quiet piece of green countryside with her husband Dick (he works as a painter - I got to see some pictures of what he's been working on) nd her children Lineke, Berjen and Rolan and lots of pets : 4 dogs, 8 tiny puppies, 4 cats, 7 goats and 3 horses and some chickens.

Lineke with the horses

This building is now their shed, but Dick used to live in there
with his mum and dad and lots of kids.  Hard to imagine now!

Berjen, Rolan, Frea, Dick and Lineke

Lineke and Maddi

Half of this house is where Frea's family lives and the other half
is where Dick's mum lives.

Dick and Frea's car, which I thought was an interesting shape.

We had a pleasant dinner together and the next morning Frea, Lineke and I set off for a scenic drive from Nijverdal to Holten.  It was a very nice piece of forest and the autumn colours were beginning to show.  We stopped at a lookout where we could see for a long way.  Very beautiful.  Frea said it also looks very beautiful in July/August when a purple sort of shrub called "heide" covers the ground.  When the sky is clear you can see even further away.  Afterwards we also went to a Canadian War Cemetry where we watched an interesting video about Canada's involvement in WW2.  We also drove past the grave stones - it was amazing how many there were!

Frea dropped me off at Oma Botters afterwards.  That night Arjan, Helma, Sanne and Ramon came for dinner - chips, dutch potato salad, chicken, rundervlees (well cooked beef) and witlof with cheese sauce.  Very yummy!

The next morning, unfortunately, Maddi and I were awake at 4.15am again.  She had a bottle and some breakfast (and I had a salted herring with raw onion on bread:)) and we went back to bed at 6.30am.

We slept till 8.30am which was really good!

That morning, at 6am, Dad and Wiwik left on the train for Germany for a few days.  Dad for some reason accidentally took Oma's glasses so he left them in a bush at the station for me to pick up.  So Maddi and I went for a nice walk to find them.  On the way back we found a van selling fish...

The man was very friendly and helped me decide what I should try next...smoked fish and in the jar is cooked fish in vinegar (as far as I understood, anyway, I haven't tried it yet!)

When we got home, Oma was glad to have her glasses back!  She made some delicious frikandels for lunch...

I went to the library for a little bit where I worked on this blog.  The librarian there, Gea, is so nice, she let me work in her office and also kept it open for a bit longer for me!

At 1pm Helma, Sanne and Ramon came and picked me up to go shopping in Almelo.  I managed to find some things for myself (I normally look at the kids stuff first!) and Helma knew all the good shops to go to.

We got back to Oma's and soon after Enny (Tante Bertha's daughter) came to pick me up.  We went to Tante Bertha's for a while for her birthday and had some delicious chinese food for dinner.  I then went home with Hans and Enny and the kids so that Enny, I and some of our other cousins could make a reasonably early start for Staphorst the following morning.