Our weekend in Amsterdam was fabulous .
I have said before I only really feel safe , secure and truly truly deep-down happy when the four of us are together .But this is a crucial time of year for Florence , so she stayed working in Glasgow and I could cope with that knowing we will all hook-up in June in Scotland for Florence’s Final degree Show. But saying that, there is absolutely no way I want J&F to stay close to home or tied to the apron -strings .I love the fact they have lived and continue to live in wonderful cities- Newcastle,Istanbul, Glasgow,Amsterdam .I hope they carry on finding and living in lovely places .I find travel and exploring is so good for my soul.
We did so much in Amsterdam ,with the hi-light being seeing Jacob’s film ‘The Celtic Body’ ( twice ) I’m struggling to find the right words to describe it – so if I throw in ..Houston Space Station, Turtles, Coconut hair, Ear-wax,Volcanoes, Popocatepeti and spit …you should get a rough idea of what it is about !
On Sunday we took the bus out of the city to the island of Marken .Armed with only a bottle of water each , we walked around the whole perimeter of the island in the midday sun .I now feel Jacob should make a sequel to The Celtic Body ,titled ‘The Celtic Sunburned Faces or ‘How to survive in 4 hours of heat with no factor 50 ‘ ! It was beautiful , but by the end we were starving so threw ourselves onto the kibling and chips and cold drinks stalls and picnicked on the jetty .Then we all fell asleep on the boat ( resulting in even redder faces ) to Volendam .
Once on dry land ,we hooked up with Freya ,got another boat ,which should us led us to another boat ,but the 2nd boat wasn’t running ,so we walked and walked and walked and got a different boat and then walked and walked ,to the most amazing restaurant ,REM Eiland ,which is bright red and at the top of an oil-rig and can be seen for miles -but is near-dam impossible to get to ( all those dykes and canals !).This isn’t a braggy link ,just thought you might like to see it .http://www.remeiland.com/
It was fabulous ,especially the view. We got there at 8 and so were eating and drinking as dusk fell ,and so saw all the twinkly lights go on over Amsterdam .
Then it was back into town for a second night of Contract whist.Feel free to ask who won .