Excuses for a belated post!

It’s been a bit of a while since I posted any news but it’s been such a busy time!

I first started this blog sitting on a ferry heading for Dover.  We were on our way to a pre-Christmas catch up with our UK based siblings and their families (more of that next time!). 

It was so nice to be on the water again, albeit with a steel grey sea and a misty sky!

We had spent most of  the previous six weeks in The Netherlands having precious time with our daughter Hannah, husband Pieter and their beautiful little girl. 

The lead up to our departure for the Netherlands from Australia was a bit of a whirlwind but very productive. Our townhouse had been sold (it went up for sale at a the beginning of October and within a couple of weeks we had signed a contract).  

Added to that, we had also spent our first night in our beautiful little house “amongst the gum trees” – we had to wait until we could get water delivered which we eventually managed to do on 9 October!

A week or so later the skies opened and we had a huge amount of rain which easily filled up our tanks! Shame it hadn’t arrived earlier and saved us the effort and expense of buying water.

Shortly after moving in, we had many truckloads of road base delivered for our driveway. Then our very good local contractor Chris, came in to spread and level the road base to provide a tidier and smoother road. He also shaped a turning circle next to the house and installed some additional drainage. It looked so much better!

We only had three weeks to enjoy our new home but as we flew out of Australia it was lovely to know that our little house would be there waiting for us on our return. 

It was extremely hard to leave Ben and Sarah and their tiny twin girls. Although it had been five and half months since the girls had been born, their “corrected” age was only two and half months old and they had only been home from hospital for three and a half weeks – it had been a much longer hospital stay than expected. However, we were committed to going back to the Netherlands for our oldest granddaughter’s first birthday and had bought air tickets some time previously so it wasn’t possible to stay longer.

Fortunately Sarah and Ben had excellent support from Sarah’s parents which helped us feel a bit better about leaving them. 

The Netherlands was looking glorious when we arrived as autumn was in full swing despite it being almost the beginning of November. 

The colours of the autumn leaves were every shade of yellow, gold, red, orange and brown – what a beautiful sight!

We had some lovely days out including visiting two gorgeous towns – Leiden and Delft – before the birthday arrived.

We also had a trip to the farm where Pieter works and a morning at the local swimming pool where we watched Hannah and her almost one-year old enjoy the water – going down the water slide was a massive highlight!

Soon the big first birthday arrived and we had a wonderful time celebrating!  On the day itself our granddaughter came downstairs to a beautifully decorated living room and a climbing frame with a giant red bow tied on to it, as well as lots of other wonderful gifts. 

She had a whale of a time unwrapping and playing with all her birthday presents and having her very first taste of cake. 

Later on in the day we took her to the local children’s farm where she had a lovely time petting goats and sheep, big old pigs and gorgeous rabbits with very floppy ears. 

Then just a couple of days later Hannah and Pieter held a fabulous birthday party for family and friends in a 17th Century former farm house, now a restaurant with private party rooms.

It was a really great opportunity to celebrate with Hannah and Pieter’s nearest and dearest in the Netherlands. They hadn’t been able to have a full-on wedding due to Covid and got married with only their two sets of parents present. So the party was also a lovely celebration of their life together as a couple as well as being their little girl’s birthday.

What an excellent few days! And how lucky were we to be able to be in The Netherlands to celebrate our eldest granddaughter’s very first trip around the sun?!