Month: November 2017

After a bit of a delay with the trains due to cold weather cancellations, Grandad Bear and I made it to the Mayflower Theatre just in time to have lunch at their Ovation Restaurant, which was delicious as usual.  It’s always a pleasure to eat there before a show and makes the trip more relaxing.

After lunch we settled in to see the show:

We weren’t sure what to expect as we didn’t know the show but we were highly entertained. It’s a great mix of singing, dancing, drama and humour. The cast even play their own instruments live on stage – that’s real talent!  I highly recommend everyone to go and see this musical and Tom Chambers, who we loved on Strictly Come Dancing, plays the lead with great energy and charisma.

We did try and see some of the cast at the stage door to get our programme signed for our MND Association fundraising but we had to catch our train back. Never mind, we had a great day out.

 

Thanks all 😀

Thursday 9th November, after Duncan’s graduation, Helen, Duncan, Isabel and myself drove up to Southampton Airport and flew Flybe to Schipol Airport, Amsterdam for a long weekend – it was Duncan’s first flight!

After just an hour in the air we arrived at a very showery Amsterdam and made our way via the train and Metro to Hotel Joy, our base for the three nights.   It was a bit like a Travelodge in a business area approx 25 minutes away on the Metro but it was fine for us as we were out all day sightseeing.

While there we took a rather wet walking tour with Sandeman’s New Europe Tours – our guide Mark took us round the east and west of the city via the network of pretty streets running along the canals, including the Red Light District, Jordaan finishing close to a lovely restaurant where we stopped for local specialities, carrot mash and meatballs and eggs and ham.  Mind the cyclists, though, they don’t seem to obey the rules of the road!

During our stay we went on a Canal ride, a lovely way to see the city, and we took the tram to the Rijksmuseum and spent the morning admiring the paintings, etc, not forgetting a photo opportunity at the famous I Amsterdam sign:

It seems as though heavy showers and wind are quite normal in Amsterdam, not quite the best setting for the photos, but never mind.

One morning we had breakfast at the Happy Pig, a popular pancake shop where we sampled the apple strudel pancake and a bacon and cheese one, delicious!  It certainly is an art how they make them so thin.

One day we took a double decker train to Haarlem, a nearby town where we looked round the busy market and sampled some local street food – olliebollen, like an icing sugar covered plain doughnut, then a fresh Stroopwaffel, as make on the Great British Bake off and Helen sampled the fresh herring in a roll but Duncan and I gave that one a miss.  Urgh!  I did find a lovely souvenir but they were a bit big to fit in my case!

   

   

We spent the afternoon in The Boardroom Cafe, which brought back memories, we normally only get them out at Christmas.  We certainly had a good laugh!

 

Amsterdam is a beautiful city and we spent most of our time walking along the canals and stopping to enjoy the local food.  We had a burger and cakes in the foodhall near the museum and had a pitstop at the Bakkerswinkel Cafe near Dam Square. I did enjoy their homemade jams, delicious!  We were filling in a couple of hours before catching the train to the airport for our return flight, which turned out to be delayed due to the wind and rain.  Duncan quite enjoyed the turbulence, but I don’t like it myself.

It turned out to be a busy few days, we landed at 10.30 at night after a delay and then we drove to Somerset to drop Helen off before getting back ourselves at 3.30 in the morning and we all had work in the morning.