Highlights of 2012

There were some sad moments during 2012, but this post is focusing on the highlights of our year!

The year started with us being in Spain. We celebrated New Years with good friends of ours, Martin and Kirsten, in the South of Spain.

We even saw the sun!

Back in the Netherlands we had our first snow fall of the year

And while Justin was getting his first taste of outdoor skiing, Bronwen had made a surprise trip back to SA for her Dad's 70th

We had visitors from the UK

and had a BIG birthday celebration

We enjoyed tulip season

We had trips to Antwerp and Brussels

We celebrated Queens Day

And had some special visitors, Joan and Mayira, from Chile

We hopped across to the UK to meet up with Graham Michelle, Joan and Mayira

We had a romantic getaway to Venice

We had more awesome visitors, Geoff and Lucy, from SA

And enjoyed picnics in our local park

We spent time on the beach

We spent a weekend in Texel (one of the northern Dutch islands) camping with Jaap and Marianne

Dad Cross arrived and spent a week with us

Before we all headed to America to see the sights and visit family

But before arriving in America we spent some time exploring Iceland

It wasn't long after arriving back in the Netherlands that we were off enjoying another long weekend. Bron visiting Michelle in London while Justin and Graham went to watch the Springboks in action in Dublin

Bron's department had a trip to Switzerland to see CERN and some other typically Swiss sights

We had another visitor, our friend Gary from Australia

Justin's brother Brenainn and his wife Kirsten arrived and the Christmas celebrations started early with a trip to a German Christmas market and meeting up with our family from Germany, Werner, Lukas and Jasper

Sjoe! Now to see what we can squeeze into 2013!

In Loving Memory

Last week Saturday our precious Granny Hilde passed away.

When we think of Granny we think of some of her passions: family, pets, cooking and gardening. These are some of our favourite memories

Family

Granny loved having family around her, and she loved talking about her family back in Germany. She would often tell us stories about life in Germany, moving to South Africa and the naughty things her three kids would get up to.

Pets

Keeping her company in Cape Town were her two jack Russels, Yogi and Snoopy, and her cat Miauwi. Granny ensured that her pets were all well looked after and lived the good life. Lamb chops for lunch was quite normal. Everybody agreed that they would quite happily come back as one of Granny's pets in a future life.

Cooking

We would often accuse Granny of having a feeder gene. It would be quite normal to arrive for lunch and find that Granny had cooked a chicken, a roll of beef, a roll of pork, various vegetables and two cakes. And that was considered enough for four of us. We had various tactics that we tried in order to keep Granny out of the kitchen:

- organising to take her out for lunch, only to find that she wasn't feeling up to going out, and so had cooked her usual spread anyway.
- arranging to bring lunch with us resulting in her cooking a late breakfast (steak, egg, chips, mushrooms, tomatoes and croissants) to keep us going until lunch was served.
- arriving at Granny unannounced only to find that she had a chicken pie in the oven - just in case!

Gardening

Granny had the type of green fingers that would make any garden enthusiast jealous. Whether it was the 'left-for-dead' shrubs from the previous owner or the most difficult of bonsai, Granny knew how to get them looking like prize winning beauties. Even in her 80's she would still spend a full day in the garden mowing, chopping, cleaning and re-potting.

Sometimes if we were going away on holiday we would ask Granny to look after our plants for us. We would drop them off and 2 or 3 weeks later come back to fetch them, only to find them twice the size, flowering (we didn't even realise they could flower) and looking like they were ready to be photographed for a nursery catalogue.

Granny believed in keeping things simple. If there were two of us sitting down for lunch, the cake would simply be cut in half. 

Celebrating Granny's birthday at Simons in Constantia.

Bronwen, Granny, Carol and Mark.

Granny getting animated as she gets into another story with Kirsten 

Granny's 80th birthday celebration

Justin, Bronwen, Sue, Gary, Granny, Mark and Brenainn

Dad and Gran

Gran and Mum

Christmas 2010

Granny, the Cross's and the de Villiers's

Granny and one of her well pampered pets

Snoopy

Yogi

At Brenainn and Kirsten's wedding

And at our wedding with Granny Mickey

Bronwen's brother Craig and his date for our wedding

Enjoying the garden show at the Lourensford Wine Estate

Hilde Zsohar

21 Feb 1928 - 15 Dec 2012

We will miss you Granny!!
May you rest in peace.

Festivals and Family

This weekend was all about getting into the festive spirit. Christmas markets, festive season food and drink, a couple extra days off work and hanging out with family! 

Brenainn and Kirsten's tour of Europe continued with a stop-over in Rotterdam (Paris was now done and dusted). After dropping off their bags at the house and a roast beef lunch (thanks to Jamie Oliver) we headed out to explore Rotterdam. With sunset now only a few hours after sunrise (Seriously! It honestly feels that way!) it was a quick tour of the highlights before heading to the Chinese Light Festival. 

A funky container down at the docks

The Chinese Light Festival is being advertised as the largest festival of its kind in Europe. Our local park has been converted into a field of Dragons, Ducks, Toadstools, Pandas and a number of other displays with Chinese themes. 

After their initial introduction to Rotterdam (and experiencing some sub-zero temperatures) it was time to call it a day. 

The next day (Friday) was spent exploring Amsterdam. We saw the main sights and there was a healthy dose of shopping therapy. 

 

Lunch

And then it was Saturday! We picked up a rental car and headed off to Aachen. Aachen is in Germany (just - it is 5km from the border) and is well known for its Christmas Market. In Aachen we met up with our family from Wuppertal and started soaking up the Christmas atmosphere (mostly with Gluhwein and great traditional German food).

But before any 'soaking' we started with a tour of the town hall (which used to be a palace) and cathedral. 

Kirst, Bren, Werner, Lukas and Jasper enjoying some German sausage. 

Gluhwein time! 

If you are ever in Aachen for the Christmas Market, we recommend the Hexenhof!

And then time for some more great German food! 

Hard at work making bonbons

The evening ended with Werner taking us all out for dinner at one of the local restaurants. What an awesome day! Thanks to Werner, Lukas and Jasper for coming out and spending the day with us. 

Sunday arrived wet and gloomy so we had a bit of a slow start. Eventually we left the house and made our way to the bike rental shop. Today we were heading for Kinderdijk. 

The trip to Kinderdijk involves cycling from the bike rental shop to the port, catching a water bus 2 stops, changing to a local water taxi and then cycling the last kilometer to the windmills. The only problem was that the water taxi didn't seem to be running today. Time to make some last minute changes to the plans. Dordrecht! We carried on with the water bus and jumped off at Dordrecht, along with a number of other passengers that had come to this normally quiet town for the annual Christmas Market. This Christmas Market felt a lot like any normal Saturday market and definitely wasn't on the same level as the German market, but we had fun anyway! We tried some Poffertjes (small crumpets) served hot with butter and icing sugar (YUM) and some Oliebollen (also in the YUM category). 

We concluded the weekend with a Christmas dinner, a bit of a beer tasting, and Printen for pudding (a traditional German pudding from Aachen). And then it was time to say cheers to Bren and Kirst as they continued on their European adventure. Next stop for them is Nuremburg. 

On a sadder note Granny Hilde passed away on Saturday evening. She was an amazing person and will be sorely missed!