Easter Sunday and Monday

Happy Easter, originally uploaded by CharlesFred.

Seeing as we had not been invited around for a traditional Dutch Easter brunch by anyone.... we decided that we would invite Henk and Eric around and, sure enough, they turned up at midday whereupon we started off with a bottle of prosecco (apart from Fred who is suffering a bit from a bad cough). This was followed by a traditional English breakfast of sausages, eggs and bacon, fried tomatoes and mushrooms and toast, followed by hot cross buns and Dutch Easter bread, with coffee and orange juice.

After this we went off on one of our traditional Sunday walks through Amsterdam, through the ioccasional snow and hail shower until we found ourselves in our favourite bar, Cafe Stevens. Here we got a pack of cards out and spent the next few hours, until after dark, playing the simple but enjoyable game of ' pesten' which Fred went on to win time and time again... to make up for the fact that he was not drinking any beer like the rest of us. It was very enjoyable, even for those of us (Eric and myself) who hardly won a single game....

After this we visited another bar or two and fed ourselves on a kebab before visiting a few more bars after which we caught the bus home. An unexpectedly enjoyable Easter Sunday.

We didn'tg get up to too much on Easter Monday, although I did go out on the bike to take a few photos, trying to catch the mood of the sky, which gave us sun, hail and snow, cahnging ever6 quarter of an hour or so, before just turning grey later in the day.

Last year we had the hottest Easter on record, this year the coldest Easter for a while... not only cold but so very unsettled... I can't ever remember having ahd so many snow showers one day after the next... now five days in a row with more promised tomorrow.

I'll be spending tomorrow in Stockholm, flying out this evening and back again tomorrow - a flight which is costing as much as my flights down to South Africa. maybe the weather will be more settled there...