The last few days have been very busy!  I'll begin at the beginning...

Tuesday : On Tuesday morning Tante Aly (mum's youngest sister) and Oom Bertus came to pick me up from Tante Bertha's house.  It was funny, because Maddi was laying on the floor and they asked where Maddi was - they hadn't looked properly and thought she was a doll!  We went to their house first, as Maddi needed a sleep.  They have a nice big house.  I always find it interesting to see people's houses and how they live.  Nice when I think of them later, I can imagine where they might be sitting or what they might be doing.  We looked at some old photos and Tante Aly told me that when I was a baby, that I was her oog apple - the apple of her eye - that was nice to hear!  She used to come over a lot and play with me and visit her sister.

Tante Aly (sorry, I forgot to take a photo of
Oom Bertus)

We had a nice time, sitting around their kitchen table with a cup of coffee, catching up, looking at old photos.  That's another thing I want to say about Holland - nearly everyone has a coffee machine and not many people seem to have instant coffee.  They also often put sugar "klontjes" (sugar cubes) into their coffee instead of "loose" sugar.

Oom Bertus went and got some kibbeling (deep fried small pieces of fish) for our lunch, which was delicious.  After lunch we went and had a look at their clothes shop in Hardenberg (sorry, I also forgot to take a photo of that!)  It's a really nice shop, with an area that has tables where people can sit and have a free cup of coffee and children can play.  It also looked like they had really good customer service (eg. don't start serving someone else until the previous person has left the register).  This particular shop (they have 3 altogether) has more mens clothes (including really big sizes like7X) and also a big selection of jeans for everyone - they have gone for that "niche"of the clothing market in Hardenberg.  Another of their shops has a big variety of clothing for bigger ladies.  I've been looking around for a denim skirt and I found a really nice one which I was going to buy, but they gave it to me as a gift! And yes, Tante Aly, I will try to wear it higher on my waist!

I got back to Tante Bertha and Oom Ben's in the late afternoon.  I got to have a go in Tante Bertha's little car (I'm pretty sure I mentioned it in a previous blog).  We drove to Oldemeyer which is a picturesque swimming lake (this area isn't close to the ocean).  There are also walking paths around it.  I had my foot flat on the floor and managed to get to 60km/hour!

Oom Wim came over to say goodbye.  He had some clogs for the kids and also a really nice natural photo of our family around Opa and Oma Kuipers' table.

It was then time to say goodbye to Tante Bertha and Oom Ben as Pieter Templeman had come to pick me up...



Wow!  I probably shouldn't comment on this as maybe
you haven't noticed...... but I think

that I look like I have eaten way too many frikandels!



I had a really nice evening with the Templeman's who all looked very well and like they have settled in to life in Holland.  Henny cooked us a very yummy dinner - delicious tasty soup, runderslavink (which I think is beef mince wrapped in very thin beef meat which you fry/bake), fried potatoes, beans and applemoes with cinnamon in it (which I've never had before but was actually very nice with the other food).  Oh, and of course I forgot to mention mayo!  I think I must've eaten about a large jar of mayo the last few weeks! 

So, after a nice evening together, Henny dropped me off at Oma Botter's as we had to be on time the next morning to catch the train to Leeuwarden.  Oom Roel and Tante Geke were there, so it was once again a "gezellig" and (very) late night!  One last thing I want to say about Holland in this post is that most of the people seem to stay up way later than most people I know in Australia...



Here is a photo of me with Oom Bertus
from Tante Aly, which I got from her
a bit later.