Saturday, June 28, 2014

Friday - This was a stay at home day, or at least no traveling. Linda attended the garden club party at Jose's house. Everyone rode bikes.  They started at Hans and Jose's garden. They have been working on it for years and its amazing how much can be placed into such a small place. It is built up and that allows a fountain to channel water down over rocks that Hans collects.

Then it was onto a house around the corner and a couple of blocks away. We had walked by this house with Joke and Kees on our way to visit John and Nel when we first arrived. This house has a large nail embedded in the facade of the house. When the couple was dating, he gave her a nail as a silly gift. So, when they built their house, the romantic fool had the nail placed there as a token of his love for her.

I passed the time by walking to de Lindehoff for coffee. It was a bit cool, so I found a couch inside in front of a gas fireplace. Cozy place to read. As I walked in I was greeted by Lana. She waited on us a few times during our first and second summers here. Lana is a teacher and moved to Australia for the last two years, but now she's back. It was nice to see her again.

Linda was finished with her party before I returned and went looking for me at all the places in town that we go for coffee except de Lindehoff. After some sax playing by Linda, we went out for a walk to find a music school we had been told about that might provide lessons. The sky was questionable but we headed out anyway without an umbrella. We cut through the community instead of going directly down to the main road. Along the way we saw a sign for an event on Saturday and Sunday in the fields in Soest that included a tractor pull, helicopter rides and a couple of other things. It sounded like a mini county fair. We may check it out. Down past the church at the roundabout and then stopped and asked for directions. After the second person, we turned around and found it right next to the church. It was closed but a sign gave us a website to checkout.

On our way back the rains came. We ducked under a roof at a bank and waited it out. Much like Florida, in five minutes, the torrential rains stopped and the sun came out.  Later, we had two interesting visitors. I went to the door and found Noor and her friend, Rosa, I think that's her name. Noor was holding a plastic basket full of cut up pieces of what looked like newspaper. I invited them in. Noor put the basket down on a chair and dug down and pulled out a small gift she had obviously wrapped herself. I called Linda down from upstairs and Noor gave her a gift too. I think mine was a bookmarker and Linda's was a small plastic round box. Linda decided it was perfect for her art eraser. We thanked them, they giggled and left. Cute.  

Saturday - Jose brought over her desktop size painting easel for Linda to use to hold her music. Linda practices in Kees' office on the third floor and needed something to hold her music at the right height. This worked perfectly. 

The day was cloudy but bright. So we took off aiming for the river. First stop was for me to have a coffee at the DLC (cafe by the train station). Linda had a fresh mint tea. Our waitress turned out to be an airline attendant and was chatty. She gave us a card with their website on it for us to check their specials. We looked at the menu for future reference. 

We walked through some of the Soest houses and encountered this car celebrating Dutch soccer.

A little farther down the road we came upon this house. It struck us as an example of the old and the new. 

This house looked so charming, we just had to take a picture.

After we passed the houses, we were in a farming area. What is this? It was in a horse pasture.

Down the paths that cars also use, we eventually turned to the right and walked parallel to the train tracks. We got close to the tracker pull and saw the helicopter overhead, but decided to head back. Alongside the road was an area that looked like a zoo for children. There were several swans in this pond.

We ended up walking past the house where Linda fell off her bike and broke her elbow in 2011. By the time we got back to our part of town we were hungry and decided to go back to the DLC and have lunch. With the same waitress, we both had carpaccio and I had a very tasty dark beer and Linda had a sparkling water.  We requested that they not put the parmesan cheese on the meat and please keep the wonderful looking freshly made olive bun away from us. We met the owner/chef who has her own garden and uses it to provide fresh ingredients for her dishes.  Linda really likes this idea.  We will go back.

We actually walked for an hour and a half then I came home and mowed the yard.

Linda started planning for a baby blanket for Brynleigh, Leigh Ann's baby in the tummy. I worked on a grid using Excel for her to get the proportions right and she started drawing a design. That took up the rest of the evening.