Tread Softly on My Dreams

Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,

Enwrought with golden and silver light,

The blue and the dim and the dark cloths

Of night and light and the half light,

I would spread the cloths under your feet:

But I, being poor, have only my dreams;

I have spread my dreams under your feet;

Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

W.B. Yeats. (1865-1939)

Yesterday we attended the wedding of Bronwen’s colleague Dan and his beautiful fiancé Sam. What a wonderful, fun-filled day! Thanks for inviting us to share your special day Dan and Sam! We had a great time =)

The venue was Kasteel ‘t Kerckebosch in Zeist (near Utrecht), the smallest castle in the Netherlands. Even though it is supposedly Spring, it was a typical Winter’s day: overcast, blowing a gale and temperatures hovering around zero. Braced against the cold, we headed to Zeist for our first Dutch wedding!

The day was a beautiful celebration of Dan and Sam’s relationship. Their friends and family had travelled from many far places to share their special day and you could feel the love and strong family bonds, it was really special. It was a very relaxed day with lots of laughter. We loved chatting to and getting to know Dan and Sam’s family and learning more about them and their life before the Netherlands.

The bride was radiant in a raw silk gown with a bodice of pleats and an off the shoulder lace bolero and the groom cut a dashing figure in a traditional morning suit. The emotion of the day was felt as the bride entered the ceremony on her Dad’s arm and when friends and family read poems, including Tread Softly with My Dreams by Yeats and a poem written by Dan's Mom, and gave testimony to their love for each other. It was a really beautiful ceremony, relaxed but serious and with the lots of support for the couple.

The ceremony was followed by and Dan opening a bottle of champagne with a sword and then a borrel. The bridal couple and family quietly slipped away for photo’s and the whole wedding party braved the cold for a group shot outside.

Then it was dinner time! Dan and Sam had spent a lot of time on the small details of the day and their effort paid off. Well done guys! We loved the hand folded origami place settings and the sweet table favours. The meal was amazing with the best steak we have had since leaving SA!

Then it was party time! Dan and Sam hired a Ceilidh band (pronounced something like Kaylee). Ceilidh is a traditional Gaelic gathering with music and dance. The band played lovely traditional Scottish and Irish tunes and taught us how to dance the Gay Gordons, the Virginia Reel, Strip the Willow and many others. Think: line dancing, Dosey Doe, swing your partner round, polka steps. It was seriously fun and great exercise! We highly recommend giving it a go if you have the chance.

The other entertainment of the night was provided by Justin knocking over glasses, more than once. The first time was leaning over the bar to get the perfect shot of the cut the cake moment. Who leaves glasses lined up on a bar? Seriously. The second time was Doesy Doeing straight back into a waitress carrying a full tray of full glasses into a room of people line dancing. Ok, that one was their fault! Thanks for making us laugh babe =) Dan and Sam we are sorry for all the broken glasses! Thanks for being so chilled about it =)

Thanks for inviting us to share your special day Dan and Sam! It was really lovely! We hope you had a great day too. Wishing you all the best as you embark on this new adventure and a lifetime of happiness =) Enjoy the Australian honeymoon and looking forward to catching up when you get back! Travel safe and have a blast! 

Kasteel 't Kerckebosch

The grand staircase at the entrance

The nervous groom

Waiting for the bride, Laura and Bron

Exchanging rings and vows

Signing the register

Walking out as Mr and Mrs, relaxed and all smiles

Laura and Ian

Dan opening a bottle of champagne with a sword! 

Dinner time! 

The beautiful hand made origami place settings

The cake.What an original cake topper! 

Cut the cake shortly followed by the crash of glasses!

Speeches. We love your dress Sam!

The Ceilidh band

The TU Delft crowd signing an altered version of the Monty Python Lumberjack Song 

(A favourite BN dept past time)

Picturesque Enkhuizen and Luxurious Landgoed Duin & Kruidberg

This week Bronwen and Justin both managed to get out of Rotterdam for a few days. Justin was off to Amsterdam, Enkhuizen and Amersfoort while Bronwen headed out to Santpoort (not too far from Amsterdam). 

Justin was taking part in an international training program. The program kicked off this week with four days of workshops, presentations and various activities. The program is spread out over 18 months and includes 21 participants from the Netherlands, the UK and South Africa. We started in Amsterdam, spent a few days living on a boat, got to visit the beautiful little town of Enkhuizen and wrapped up the program at our company head office in Amersfoort. 

Some pictures taken in Enkhuizen...

Our boat covered in ice...

The mast and winches of the 'Skutje' covered in ice...

The town of Enkhuizen...

The group of 21 has been split into 3 groups of 7. Over the next 18 months we will be competing against the other teams in various challenges. The awesome team that will of course be in number 1 position at the end of 18 months, is Team Ignite (Ben, Sophie, Greg, Suzan, Jana, Guido and Justin).

Inside one of the boats that we were staying on...

A rare chance to just sit down and enjoy the surroundings...

Leaving the boats and heading to our next destination: Amersfoort.

The view from my hotel window in Amersfoort...

This week Bronwen was also out and about, but in slightly more luxurious surroundings. For two days she was attending a symposium at Landgoed Duin & Kruidberg.

Four or five years ago a grant was given to study 'The Physics of the Genome'. The end of the programme has been reached and this symposium was arranged to present the work conducted over the past few years. Some of the projects will still carry on with other funding. This was a great opportunity for Bron to get  to know the other biophysics groups in the Netherlands and what they do. Later in the year she will probably attend another local meeting and learn more about biophysics.

It was a lovely 2 days away filled with science, good food, snow and a walk in the nature reserve behind the venue. We even saw two deer! Justin and Bron may be back in the Summer for High Tea on the terrace =)

The old house with snow grounds

View of the house from across the pond

View over the pond from the house

In other news, there was some snow again this week. It is really late in the year for it to be snowing! Apparently it only snows in March once in ten years. Not sure if we should feel lucky or bleak. Hoping for more appropriate Spring weather soon! 

We look forward to the wedding of Dan and Sam next weekend. Dan is a colleague of Bron's at the TU Delft. And the following week Easter and the start of Daylight Saving Time!! 

Hope you are all well! 

x

2013: The Year of the Travel

We have been a bit quiet lately and the main reason is the poor weather! The freezing weather has continued and the max temperature over the last 2 or 3 weeks has been 5ºC. It has been much too cold to do anything exciting or worth writing about. We are suffering from a severe case of mid-winter blues which is not helped by family and friends in SA telling us about the hot weather and brilliant sunny days they are having nor by all the amazing pictures of Cape Town in mid-Summer glory we keep seeing on Facebook!

The only way to combat the winter blues is to make holiday plans for the upcoming Summer! We made a list of all the places we want to visit while we are in Europe, it is quite a long list, and tried to fit as many into this year as possible. 2013 will be the year of the travel! Turns out we have more available leave than holiday budget, lol. This is the list of plans for the year ahead:

March: 6 day visit to Michelle and Graham and little Joshua in London

April: Abi, Frank and little Josh Daubenton will visit us in Rotterdam

May: 4 day trip to Cork and Ring of Kerry in Ireland.

June: A week in the Interlaken area of Switzerland with Dave and Olga Finnemore.

June: 4 days in Iceland for a lab trip (Bron)

August: 2 weeks in Scotland starting in Glasgow and ending in Edinburgh with the Isle of Skye and the Highlands in the middle.

September/October: a week in Greece or another equally sunny beach holiday

December/January: Southern Italy, probably the Napoli area

Everything up to Scotland in August is booked and arranged so far. We hoping to pick up a cheap last minute deal for an Autumn break to (hopefully still) sunny Greece. And by December we will also need a sun break away but this year somewhere other than Spain. We also hope to squeeze in some other long weekends away. We would love to visit Ev and Frances Duarte near Dresden in Germany and we are hoping Rob and Sue Huddy plan a European trip tagged onto a conference in Italy.

Other places we still want to go to but probably not this year include:

Croatia!

Turkey

Norway

Nice, Cannes and Montpellier area, France

Copenhagen

Belfast and Giant’s Causeway, Ireland

Galway and County Mayo, Ireland

… to name a few!

We hope you are as jealous of our plans as we are when we see your pictures of Table Mountain or Kirstenbosch on a beautiful summers day! =)

In other news we have been having friends over for dinner and also going for fun dinners at friend’s places. Yesterday we also completed our Dutch tax forms for 2012. Why does it feel like we are always doing tax forms?? This time round we could use the online programme to fill everything in and while much easier than last year’s M form, still took some time and patience to complete.

We are feeling relieved that it is March and hope it will start warming up soon. The coming week at least is forecast to be warmer, around 15ºC, and we are looking forward to the first daffodils of the season soon! We are also really looking forward to lammetje knuffelen soon. Watch this space to find out what lammetje knuffelen is! To be posted in the near future…

Hope you are well and have a good week ahead!

x

A funky corner apartment we really liked in a street in Utrecht! 

Thanks Dan and Sam for a very kewl raclette dinner last night! 

Michelle and Super Josh!

Mom and baby are home and doing well =)

Welcome Joshua!

The most exciting news of this week is that our first nephew was born yesterday! Welcome little Joshua Peter Finnemore!

Little Josh arrived by Caesarean Section on Saturday afternoon 2 Feb 2013 in Kingston, London at 13:36 local time at 55cm and 3.58 kg. Well done to my amazing sister Michelle for enduring 72 hours of ‘pre-birth discomfort’ as Graham puts it. You did a great job and stayed smiling through it all. Well, at least I think you were smiling as all your whatsapp updates indicated you were very positive and in great spirits to the end. We are so glad it is over and you have your little bundle to love and enjoy.Mom and baby are both doing well and should be going home on Tuesday.

Congratulations Michelle and Graham! We are so excited for you as you take on this new adventure of being parents. We know you are going to do a fantastic job. Josh, we are so happy and excited to welcome you into our family and we can’t wait to meet you! You are so loved by so many people already.

The first pictures of Joshua: 

I love my shleepy sheepie! 

Thanks Aunty Bron and Uncle Justin for my super cool beanie, Moose babygrow and cuddly sheep! 

A few hours after birth

Yawn!

I has hair!

Cuddles with Dad

Proud Dad

UK Visitors

This weekend we had visitors from the UK! Justin met Martin at res at UCT and they shared an apartment together for a year. Both are now married and doing the work and travel abroad thing. We love getting together to catch up especially in new and exciting places. Martin and his wife Kirsten joined us in Southern Spain in Jan 2012 and we caught up in London in May 2012. This time they popped over to stay with us in Rotterdam and we introduced them to some local Dutch favourites.

Things have been a hectic lately for all four of us so we decided to take it easier and not mission too much. Also, it snowed most of Saturday morning and temperatures were still below zero. Not so great for exploring and sight-seeing. After collecting Martin and Kirsten from Rotterdam airport on Saturday morning, the bags were dropped off at home and we set out for exploring Rotterdam! First stop was the local Saturday market to ogle all the cheese, herring and flower stands. On the way we sampled fresh hot stroopwafels! A must on any trip to the Netherlands! The tour continued with a walk around the old harbour area, the pencil and cube houses which started the funky modern architecture craze that Rotterdam has going on. Of course a few snow balls were thrown and many photos were taken! Time to warm up with a hot chocolate in a local bakery and then head home for an awesome meal prepared by Justin! Thank you Boib! A cosy evening at home with a movie on the couch followed =)

A seagull in the snow is such an odd sight! Makes for great photos though.

Stroopwafels!

Fresh fish at the market

Fresh produce at the market

The old harbour frozen over

Bron and Kirsten

Martin and Justin

Duck tracks in the snow on the ice

Sunday dawned rainy and gloomy with sounds of ice falling off the roof. Yay! We were finally above 0ºC for the first time in two weeks! Hooray for the rain and warmer temperatures to melt all the icy snow. The snow has been quite pretty but also caused a lot of disruptions and we are so over the freezing temperatures! A day sloshing around in the melting icy snow ensued…

Despite the rain and 5ºC, we headed to The Hague to experience an older Dutch city and find a good pancake place! We showed Martin and Kirsten the important old parts of The Hague, such as the Nieuwe Kerk, the Mauritshuis (although it is covered in scaffolding for renovations), the City Hall and the Binnenhof. We did some high street browsing and found an awesome kitchen gadget shop!

Then it was pancake time! Dutch pancakes are so different to the crepe style pancake we know. They are thicker, bigger, not rolled up but served flat, and the filling is baked into the dough. Sweet or savoury, they are delicious! Our favourites are bacon or ham, cheese and syrup and just good old apple.

Then it was time to head back to Rotterdam and get ready for the airport =( 

Kirsten, Martin and Bron at the Binnenhof in The Hague

Pancake time!!

Thanks for coming to visit us Marts and Kirst!! Was awesome having you! Come again soon! Next time we will do Amsterdam, the tulips and the windmills! Have a good week and good luck for all the deadlines and craziness!

Have a good week everybody!

x