Sunday 25 April 2010

Baskets of flowers & Birthday wishes


God, how lazy am I with this bloggy blog?? VERY. Terribly sorry, I returned from Deutschland over a week late. I won’t lie to you, I wasn’t that gutted about it. If I’m honest, countries like Germany and Holland have never been at the top of my wish list. I’m not a complete philistine; I was interested, but not completely overwhelmed like a kid going to Disneyland (which I can only imagine as I was never taken to Disneyland... child neglect!) I am happy to say I was more than pleasantly surprised, I absolutely adore Germany (and Holland). We stayed with Mike and Linda (Chris’ Brother and sister in law) right on the boarders of Belgium, Holland and Germany which gave us easy access to all three. Fabulous I say! Germany is dead chilled, and with a bakery on ever corner, what’s not to like? Only downfall was spending our planned budget completely in the week we were there. Then when we got stranded we had to withdraw money and eat all of the cakes we’d bought because they’d go all skanky... that’s how we convinced ourselves to eat them all anyway...
I have a new mission in life. I want a bike. With a basket. In the basket will always be newly picked flowers and a freshly baked loaf of bread. I will ride my bike around the cities of Holland all day long pleasuring people with my waft of bread as I float by, my long skirt falling and flowing behind me as I ride past with a look of nostalgic, Enid Blyton contentment on my fresh, rosy face. Ahem. One day...
I have come back fresh faced and feeling positive. It was a lovely long break, a getaway from Birmingham which can sometimes be stifling. Mike and Linda are just lovely and I am happy to have gained new friends. Although across that teeny strip of water we will hopefully see a lot more of them.

My last little story from my journey afar will be one of my favourite things from the entire trip. We went to Cologne to get our flight. It was at seven so we put our cases in lockers at the airport (before we knew about the cancellations) and explored the city. Now it is the bridge across the river Rhine which I am so in awe about. It is a huuuuge bridge and is built with a sort of mesh wire running about shoulder high the entire length of the bridge. Attached to the mesh are hundreds and hundreds of padlocks and ribbons where friends and lovers, husbands and wives have secured an engraved padlock to the bridge with their names and declarations of affection and adoration are literally locked forever to the great structure. It was quite a sight and one of my favourite moments. Not wanting to be left out (but not having a spare padlock to hand) Chris and I tied a pink ribbon to the bridge. I love the romance and randomness of it all. Just love it!

I’ll leave you with that for now, I have many tales but I feel I must catch up on sleep. It is Chris’ 21st birthday tomorrow. He is planning on getting up at 6.30 am and I’m still knackered from travelling (the Eurostar, which by the way is amazingly efficient you MUST try it!) so I feel that bedtime is nigh.

Goodnight!

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