In New Zealand – people mess about in boats and then they take them out and sail, or row, drive or whatever else one does to move a boat on the waves. And of course it is usually on the ocean waves which makes it not messing about in boats. It might also be in an inner harbour, or up a river or on a large lake. BUT you do have to concentrate in New Zealand – you don’t generally stoodge about. If you stoodge about you are at risk and people die every year because they were just too laid back.

Well, here in the Netherlands one really does stoodge about, or mess about in boats. We have seen it many many times – walking over the many bridges over many canals, and we have experienced it personally as well.

We did do a RIB (rubber inflatable Boat) trip last year – 6 of us in a RIB riding around the canals and up the Spaarne River and it was fun, but it was not just messing about in boats – we had a time frame and people who were leaving to catch planes. Of course it was fun and we will do it again ourselves – which may well qualify as messing about in boats.

And of course we have been on canal tours – but that is also not messing about in boats.

On Saturday we were going to ride our bikes slowly up beside the Spaarne and listen to live jazz at the Cafe Terras in the afternoon at Fort Zuid. It was to be a test to see how we are both doing as this spring has affected us both quite negatively.

But as it happens we changed our plans as we were invited for a ride around the canals in a private boat. Now that was really messing about in a boat. We had lovely food, lovely company and a tour by two wonderful locals who know the canals and all of Haarlem extremely well. The boat was quite large, has sleeping accommodation for up to 5, small bathroom, kitchenette etc. It also has a Coots nest (black and white bird a bit like a pukeko) on the platform by the rudder. An exceptional living arrangement.

This tour was fabulous. We were told all about the buildings lining the canals including one which used to belong to Napoleon, and many other interesting facts. We also passed a small boat – maybe 15 to 20 feet and I will update that figure after confering with Best Beloved.

When these two were very young and very much in love the took a boat of such size and shape – across the English Channel and up the Thames. Wow! it was a very small boat – not designed for ocean travel. It clearly made it because these two are still together and they still mess about in boats. It seems that they were a little nervous in parts of that earlier journey.

We explored to the end of the canals where this boat was too substantial to go under the bridges and continue. I seem to think we have done that before in the RIB – although in the RIB we pressed on regardless – laying flat in it, so that we could negotiate under the bridges. This boat was too big for the little bridges, and we jiggled and jiggled (don’t know that that is a nautical term) around so the boat could turn and go back where from whence it came.

We drank lovely Rose and ate Cheese sticks, nuts and fishy stuff on melba toast and just simply enjoyed a lovely few hours messing about in a boat.

And we saw Haarlem with new eyes – odd for us really because we see most things with new eyes. But from a boat the world is a different place.

I actually enjoyed messing about in this boat with Best Beloved and these lovely locals.

Thank you

We have been here now for nearly 14 months apart from my 1 month in NZ.

It is truly autumn and the temperature outside was 4.6 this morning – I know this because Best Beloved bought a gadget while he was in Denmark which has a unit outside which tells us the outside temperature – fortunately the information displays on a gadget inside the house.

We live on the yellow brick road at present – because it is gently snowing yellow leaves from the huge tree beside our house. The tree still has lots of leaves so it will be a yellow brick road for some time yet. When we arrived here at the end of February I had noticed that armies of men (well an army of 4 or so men) were picking up rubbish and dog shit in the park that we look out to from the windows of our house. I thought it was because they needed to keep the dog shit off the ground because they have many bulbs in the ground and dog shit is not good for these and that they only did it in the spring. But I think they may do it all year round – it is just that the huge tree and all its foliage stopped us from seeing the activity on the grounds during the summer – now the leaves have dropped sufficiently for us to see them at work once more and it is definitely not spring.

I had 4 weeks in NZ in July/August. Jet lag hit me big time, maybe attached to being home again and maybe all that rain in Auckland maybe exhaustion from speaking where I have spent the last months only speaking with Best Beloved and the odd shop assistant and occasionally skyping family and friends.

I had nearly forgotten how bad the weather can be. I didn’t sleep a full night in my first 11 nights, so I was not safe driving anywhere as was very wobbly – my poor daughter was the taxi when she could. The doctor was helpful and I did get to sleep in the end, and then I visited Best Beloveds mum in Kaitaia and his brother in Cambridge and a few people in Auckland. Stupidly I had also made a committement to creating a piece for the Alpaca Expo – I had to complete that and post it before I left New Zealand, the beautiful yarn was waiting for me when I arrived in NZ.  I knitted in bed at 2am, and then I unpicked it during the day, and then I knitted again during the night. it was torture but the dress was okay in the end. Next year when I come home – I will not have any committments to create anything for anyone and I will see everyone.

When I returned to the Netherlands  I had 2 weeks to complete a jacket for WoolOn – for the Alexandra Blossom festival. So I knitted a huge jacket and felted it. My very first felted piece.

We have had some of my Danish family here for a week – they stayed in Den Helder in the north of the Netherlands, and we visited them and they visited us here in Haarlem. It was great – but my Danish is so rubbish and I have to do something about that.

Then believe it or not Best Beloved and I had 12 marvellous days in Denmark, we went everywhere and had a fantastic time. My Danish family were amazing and gave us a wonderful time. Some of you will have heard the story that John said 44 years ago that we would come to Denmark together and he has been true to his word – that is 44 years later we finally went together to Denmark and he loved it. Mind you we were spoilt rotten.

We have had visitors from NZ. Best Beloved went with them on a bus tour and on a candlelight dinner on the canals of Amsterdam and to Den Haag to the M. C. Escher exhibition. Best Beloved rang from the clog factory – to say would I go out with him if he bought himself some wooden clogs – what could I say? But he didn’t actually buy any.

You may as well know – that Best Beloved is probably the most photographed non Dutchman in the Netherlands. He is out with his beard, hat, pipe and his bicycle and he is constantly photographed. What would all those tourists do if they found out he was Ngapuhi from the Far North of NZ. We were in Zaanse Schans – lots of things Dutch including windmills, a very touristy spot – which is why we were there – and there they all were – a Japanese tour group all in a row waiting for BB to ride by the windmill so they could get that authentic picture with the windmill in the background and the Ngapuhi Dutchman riding by. Clearly someone spotted him coming and they all stood with cameras raised to get that special picture. And he was going to add clogs to the picture – he would end up with writers cramp as they will ask him to sign cards in the future. Maybe we could make money out of him walking around all the tourist places? – people posing with a real dutchman?????

I have now also been to the M.C. Escher exhibition in Den Haag, and we have attended a monument weekend in Haarlem – where all the monumental house were open and entry was free for the weekend, and the big town square had a huge mediaeval market and activities (the stories you will have to wait for), and a mad boat day with the biggest flea market along the Spaarne. We have attended a Jazz festival, been to the Keukenhof Gardens (famous Dutch spring gardens, museums, a bit of Germany, Switzerland and lots of places here in the Netherlands. We have been to the very south of the Netherlands in Maastricht and to the very north of the Netherlands in Den Helder and cycling on the island of Texel.

A bit of fine madness was the hiring of a RIB (rubber inflatable boat) and travelling the canals of Haarlem – they did supply a map of the canal routes and said you could go here or you could go that way – we went that way. They didn’t tell us that all 6 of us including two 6 foot 4 inch males had to lie horizontally in this RIB to negotiate under 2 bridges. The water was so high that we could not be more than an inch or two above the boat edge. Best Beloved was steering at the back and me at the front with my eyes just over the boat -  saying move left, move right – straight on – as he couldn’t see a thing from the back. A bit of bizarre Dutch humour.

We have also bought a piece of summer truffle – and created a pasta dish with it – and it was sublime. I don’t remember the weight of it – but it cost us about 20 NZ dollars – for a piece half the size of an egg, but it was out of this world. We found a video of Antonio Carluccio cooking – summer truffle and we used his recipe and it was worth every cent that we paid for the truffle.

And to top it all off I have had 10 wonderful days of antibiotics – and I am now feeling so much better and I am creating stuff once more and I will write stories again.

So that is a bit of our year – and the stories will come.