home on the grange
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Saturday, May 05, 2007
A day out in het Gooi
It might have been May Day bank holiday weekend in Britain, but here in Holland it was Queen´s Day on Monday, yay, a day off!
Me and Joe took the bikes out for a wander in surrounding countryside and within 10 minutes were speeding past canals separating us from fields full of Hendrikas! (thats cows for those who can´t remember "The Cow who Fell in the Canal").

Soon we were in the woods that spread all the way from Utrecht to the Gooimeer (thatś part of the Netherlands inland sea) and we came across a little farm. With it's little nestling farmhouse and two tilled fields surrounded by forest it was like something out of a Hans Christian Anderson story.
The Queen's Day celebrations themselves were really good fun, we spent it in Hilversum rather than in either city to soak up our local atmosphere.




Monday, April 16, 2007
Dirtbags
Fred, legend that he is, has put this really cool video together for us. All hail Fred and his omni-present camera!
Friday, March 02, 2007
Hello Again
God, it's like she thinks this blog is her personal message board or something...
Well, I'm afraid my manager has been somewhat more prompt than usual with the rotas this month and the only weekend I've been given off is the weekend 16th-18th. Sorry Kathryn. You can come to Hilversum any time tho! And Amsterdam is closer to London than edinburgh is so I'm sure I'll pop in again.
So- that's the 16-18th people! Keep it free cos I'm coming to town!
And I've been trying to send an e-mail round the girton list and it's failed twice- any clues? basically I was saying- sign this petition. Come on guys, you LIVE the congestion charge and hasn't it been worth it?
http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/TRACK-CARS/
hehe. I'll be in touch.
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Ik ga naar nederlands
Yes that's right! I've been off radar for ages cos I've been bricking it about a job I applied for. Will I get it? Did I get it?............Yes!! I got it!!!
I'm moving to the Netherlands at the end of April, to a wee town called Hilversum which is slap bang between Amsterdam and Utrecht, in what is apparently known as the 'Richmond' of the Netherlands.
So, I am going to come down your way soon (sorry Chris, Al, Jen, Rose, Kathryn, Torran, etc, I'm using the Westminster bias of which we northerners are so often the victims). I have yet to choose a weekend but will be descending upon your adopted town sometime in late march probably. You all have to let me know if you can't make a particular weekend and I'll do my best to avoid it.
I also need to ask a few favours with regard to said weekend:
1) Can someone put me (and joe) up from fri to sun? Double beds preferred, floors considered.
2) Can someone choose a pub which is convenient to most parties for convivial reunion/departing drinks?
3) Can someone tell Tim?
Well, that's about all folks, I'll let you know the final plans- Tot ziens!!
Anna xxxxxx
Saturday, February 24, 2007
The girl who went up a mountain and came down a hill
I went off to Wales the other weekend with a load of mates from home for a hill-walking weekend. This was the weekend that was massively snowy in the midlands and had closed all the schools. 80 of us were supposed to be leaving from Loughborough that night but only 9 of us made it- the cowards, once you were past Hathern it was fine! Although those who set off early did have to wait 4 hours outside of Abergavenny while they cleared a jack-knifed lorry off of a frozen hill.
After a night of merryment and reunion, which saw copious amounts of best welsh Brains being drunk, we woke up bleary eyed and set off for the snowy heights of 'Sugarloaf Mountain'. It was mild, there was snow on the ground and the cloud was sitting low but the sun was overhead and Coe had a GPS. We weren't about to repeat the mistakes of the convent girls lost in the brecons a few years ago with bin-bags for water-proofs. I was armed with my new 'softshell' rain-coat- the rain runs off like, well, water off a duck's back!
We set off merrily enough, folk cracked open tinnies and puffed on their roll-ups, every now and then someone would spark a joint. This was a serious and hard-working expedition.
After a few hours of up-hill graft, and much mucking about in the snow, we knew we must be nearly at the top. The cloud was low on the hills so we couldn't actually see our goal, in fact, we hadn't been able to see the top all day but were confident in Coe's leading abilities.




Although it had taken us two hours to get to the top from the point we had entered the clouds it took only half an hour to descend. We practially skiid out of the fog again. I think the trip was worth it just for the half hour of downhill recklessness. You see- two hours to ascend 3km equals mountin. 30 minutes to go a mile and a half equals hill!
Sunday, February 18, 2007
i saw......
the pope last night! waving from his car right next to me!
so now i can tick it off my list, along with a wink and a smile from a swiss guard hottie hot cake. ah, im not in rome for nowt!
Was going to stick a picture in (of the pope, not the hottie) but cant work out how.
a papal wave
rose