Childhood memories

This weekend I visited my aunt, who lives in a small village called Wahlwiller, which is nestled in between the green hills of Southern Limburg, close to the German and Belgian border. It's one of those places where time stood still. Where everyone knows each other by name and where people still go to Sunday mass, before heading to the café. I love it there. It brings back lots of childhood memories of a time when my grandparents were still alive and my parents, brother and I used to go to Limburg for the weekend every other week. 

It's not only the childhood memories and the beauty of the place that attract me, but the far reaching views, the stillness and the starry skies on a clear night as well. For a city girl like me, living in a small village like that feels like a dream. I don't think I could settle there, missing the hustle and bustle of my home town Rotterdam too much, but I am really happy that I still have family living there and a bed to sleep in whenever I like.

The photo's in today's post where taken this weekend and last August when I visited Limburg with my parents. They were mostly taken in Maastricht, the town where my mother grew up and in Wahlwiller and the surrounding countryside. The last couple of photo's show the church in Wahlwiller, which is really special and well worth a visit. It has amazing paintings by Rotterdam painter Aad de Haas, which are being restored at the moment.

Wishing you a happy week!

Love,

Madelief x

Into the bin it goes

Hello,

Hope you had as good a week as I had?! Mine was chock full of all kind of lovely outings, appointments and even a party.

On Wednesday I roamed the streets of Den Bosch with my friend Ingrid from the blog Home and Lifestyle. I did not take enough photo's to turn into a blogpost, but Ingrid published some beautiful ones of our outing on her blog. Dear Ingrid, thank you once again for a fun day! x

Yesterday morning I decided it was time to relax and focus my, sometimes spinning head, on some serious baking. Fudge it was going to be. Ha, ha, it turned out rather differently than I hoped.

I read the recipe twice before starting, used a sugar thermometer to get the right temperature for a 'soft mixture', I added the necessary ingredients, stirred every two minutes like the recipe said, but nevertheless the mixture burnt to the bottom of my thick bottomed saucepan. Such a shame. The taste was absolutely vile. I made a photo of the badge to show you. I have to say that it doesn't look that bad. Perhaps I should not have told you this story :-)!!

I still don't know what went wrong.....If you have a 'fudge recipe' that is fool proof, could you please let me know? Well, I guess (hope) that things like this happen to the best bakers -)

Before I wish you all a Happy week, I want to say that I am sorry for posting on irregular days lately. It may happen again the coming weeks, so that you know. Hope you don't mind too much?! 

Have a lovely week ahead!

Madelief x 

A muddy affair

My youngest daughter Annebelle and I worked in the communal gardens at the allotment complex yesterday. There are all sort of jobs you can volunteer for: knotting willows, pruning roses, getting rid of weeds or emptying the dustbins. I must admit that I am never that keen, but working alongside Annebelle was fun!

We had to plant about twenty-five small conifers into a muddy patch near a stream. It proved virtually impossible. Because of the rainfall the clay was soaking wet and really heavy to dig. We got stuck several times and had to be careful not to fall face down into the mud.

We had a swirling Escher pattern in mind for the conifers, but when we showed it to one of our fellow gardeners afterwards, we were laughed at. We couldn't help laughing with him. Our design looked absolutely horrible and did not resemble any pattern at all! When finished we warmed up in our garden house with a cup of tea and had a good laugh about our muddy affair.

Most of the photo's in this post were taken yesterday, but the ones with the fine weather were taken last Wednesday, when I worked in the garden most of the day.

Have a wonderful week! Lets hope for some more sunshine.

Love,

Madelief x

* I took the photo of the snowdrops in my neighbours garden. Every time I walk past it I have snowdrop envy ;-) I have about four in my garden :-( They simply won't grow!