Here Comes the Sun

We've been enjoying the first blissfully warm weekend of the year. At last, we can shed the ski jackets and woolly gloves in favour of short sleeves and sunglasses. The backdoor can stay open during the day to let a delicious warm breeze through the house (plus next door's plucky cat) and the garden is now an inviting place to sit with a book and a cup of tea. The bustling terraces of the Pijp have sprung into life once more. Yesterday we sat outside one of our new-found favourite cafes - the Soep Winkel (Soup Shop) watching the world go by and eating homemade sweet potato soup and cheese cake. Lekker! All over Amsterdam you see people sitting in upstair's window frames, reading a book or smoking a cigarette with their bare feet hanging out into the sunshine. In a city where so many people live high up it's the next best thing to a garden.

This afternoon we cycled to Vondelpark for a stroll. It seems that the rest of Amsterdam had the same idea. I've never seen the park so busy; we could hardly move amongst the other sun-seekers. The cyclists were forced to weave precariously amongst small children on roller skates, dogs, push chairs, frisbees, confused tourists and the odd strange-looking wino. A sea of bodies were sunbathing on every spare inch of green - a strange sight considering that there are still no leaves on the trees and that this time last week we were still wearing those ski jackets.