Damn tot Damn!

I'm walking again normally now.

For those of you who don't remember me going on about it the last time around, the Dam tot Damloop is an annual ten mile road race between Amsterdam and nearby Zaandam. However, 'nearby' isn't the word that springs to mind when you're running there. In fact, to a plod-along runner like me, it seems like an awful long way.

This year I was busy (not) training (enough) for the race. Hence the reason why I managed to complete eight minutes slower than the last time I did it in 2003. On a more positive note, I'm happy to be back (I had to drop out last year due to injury) and am full of ambitious training plans for next year. I swore blind that I would 'retire' gracefully after this one, but already I'm declaring my commitment to a series of gruelling early-morning workouts. I'm putting it down to post-race euphoria.

After all, the Damloop is a pretty special event. I don't particularly like the muscle soreness, but the atmosphere is addictive. Just when you start to get fed up with the pavement pounding, something distracts you from it - like one of the enthusiastic crowd members throwing a banana or giving a nonsensical commentary through a home-made loud-hailer. That, plus the fact that there's a fair share of guys with toned rear-views in lycra to focus on. The highlight for me was the start line. I waved at the amazing Paula Radcliffe, who was standing on a platform above us. As the music started to build and we began to surge forward to begin the race I definitely felt the little hairs on the back of my neck stand up. This must be the reason why 30,000 runners chose to take part this year!

Peter was also running this year, and did a fantastic job! I'd like to say that I ran alongside him, but I'm afraid he's much too fast for that.

This year I had the extra responsibility of organising all eighty of the runners from our work team. This involved a few months of preparation leading up to the big day. On sunday it was a case of showing up early at the start area and trying to fight the crowds so that everyone got to the right place at the right time, running the race, then throwing a big party at the end of it. I was fit to drop at the end of the day, but I was frightened to sit down for fear that it may not be possible to stand up again. Luckily I didn't have to sleep on the floor of the hospitality tent however, and I was safely tucked up in bed before long feeling very proud of myself and also a bit like I'd been hit by a truck.

Click HERE for all the photos...

Artis de Partis

Artis de Partis is the star of an advertising campaign for Artis - the City zoo of Amsterdam.

I'm his biggest fan. Peter came home very late the other night clutching a carrier bag. Imagine my joy when I discover he'd nipped into the zoo shop earlier and bought me my own personal ADP! Artis had been out clubbing with him that evening, but survived intact. He now sits on my bed, mournfully observing the world through his little button eyes.

New Lives Everywhere

Congratulations to Peter's sisters Madeleine and Esther on the arrival of their new babies! Madeleine and Dave's lovely baby daughter Lisa Zoe Van Pelt arrived on 6th September, shortly followed on the 11th by Esther and Ed's little cutie Kjell.

I'm going to have to work on my babysitting skills because something tells me I'm going to need them soon. My twin sister and her husband Neil are expecting at Christmas time and my good friend Alex and his wife Julia are due to deliver any day now.

New to this World in June this year were Vicki and Phil's little Laurence and Suzi and Richard's little Alexa Mia. I'm looking forward to meeting them next time I'm in the UK.

Sand Between My Toes

As I lie awake early in the mornings feeling the bed shake underneath me and watching the light-fitting swing to and fro above my head, I daydream about the beaches of Portugal. They're starting to build a block of apartments opposite us and the process of 6.30am pile-driving for the foundations isn't doing much to create a serene atmosphere at Govert Flinckstraat.

We've been back from sunny Portugal a week now and I'm starting to adjust back to Amsterdam noise levels. Friends Marielle and Salvador were tying the knot in a place called Setubal, just south of Lisbon, so we thought we'd make a week of it.

By observation, I learned several things about Portugal which I'll share with you now.

1. It's very warm and very lovely.
2. It's possible to get a tan there even if you're a pale English girl prone to burning.
3. There are (seemingly) no annoying 'Brits Abroad' north of the Algarve (apart from me).
4. There are about a zillion beaches and they're all great.
5. There are less mosquitoes there than in Amsterdam.
6. No one drives piles into the ground outside your bedroom window at 6 in the morning.
7. Ownership of a very tiny dog is compulsory.
8. Judging by the Portuguese people over thirty - the Mediterranean diet doesn't do much to keep you slim, but it does do much to keep you happy.
9. They barbeque the fish on the streets outside the restaurants.
10. It's not a good idea to stay in a hotel that has wooden floors, especially if there's a family of elephants in the room upstairs with a preference for high-heeled shoes.

All in all it was a lovely holiday and great to see Marielle and Salvador get hitched in such pleasant company and beautiful surroundings.

You can see photos of the holiday here. Enjoy!

Making a Splash

When we decided to book a work outing to the Wet 'n Wild water centre in Alphen aan de Rijn I didn't really think through the implications of being towed at high speed around a lake on the end of a bit of wire. It wasn't until we arrived and saw the previous group trying it out that I began to grow a little nervous. Wasn't that a little fast for beginners?!

The evening was pretty chilly and I didn't exactly relish the experience of climbing into an already-soggy wetsuit much. By the time we were lined up on the jetty I wasn't sure whether it was the cold or the nerves that was causing me to shiver, but I managed to pluck up the courage to pull on a pair of waterskis and crouch ready for take off.

Before I knew it I was up on my feet and (much to my amazement) I was waterskiing, just like that! Okay, I got dunked as soon as I reached the first corner, buy heh, it wasn't bad for a first attempt. On subsequent rounds I managed to learn to anticipate the changes in direction and on one final victorious circuit made it right the way round and back with a cheesy grin on my face.

Two days afterwards I felt like I'd been wrestling with a gorilla, but I'm definitely hooked.

Raining on Everyone's Parade

Bbrrrrrr.... August? What August?
Luckily the persistent rain and October-style temperatures that have hit Amsterdam recently didn't stop the annual Gay Pride canal parade taking place yesterday. We arrived early and reserved ourselves a canal-side view on the Prinsengracht, but by the time the parade started to float by our fingers and toes were numb and we'd been soaked twice. The guys on the float didn't seem to mind though, and our patience was rewarded with the usual dose of toned torsos, waxed and tanned in preparation for the party.

Bruised Soldiers

What's paintballing?
Well, you're sent out into the woods with a bunch of people dressed up in combat gear, to crawl around in the bushes and try to fire as many little hard pellets of paint out of a semi-automatic at each other as possible. On a recent works outing we got the chance to try it out. Yippeee! I was a little nervous to say the least, having been warned by numerous people in advance that the 'bullets' will cause 'searing pain' as they hit flesh. There then followed various poetic descriptions of past paintball disasters - loss of voice for a week (paintball to the throat), severe bruising (due to paintballing in a dress - I believe the guy was on his stag night), blah, blah....

Anyway, I live to see another day and the bruises only took a week or so to go.
The 'searing' bit may have been a bit of an exaggeration, but it definitely smarts a bit when those damn things hit. Bruising, fogged-up mask, mud and overly-trigger-happy colleagues aside it was definitely fun, but based on the amount of paint on my khakis and my inability to take-out the enemy I won't be running off to join the army at any point in the near future.

New Dutch Words

I've recently acquired some new Dutch vocabulary which I'm quite impressed with:

1. 'Potlood-Venter' - Flasher (literally - pencil salesman)
2. 'Stofzuiger' - Vacuum Cleaner (literally - dust sucker)
3. 'Houd je smoel' - 'Shut your Face' (literally - 'Hold your mug')

I'm not sure that these would be useful in an emergency situation, but I quite like them.
My Dutch is still pretty terrible, by the way, but I guess it's slightly less terrible than it was a year ago. Every week I cycle off to my Dutch lesson and my long-suffering teacher Paula patiently listens to my painfully-slow struggles to construct a sentence. I'm getting there, albeit at snail's pace. My main problem is that I work all day in English and then go home to my perfect-English-speaking Dutch boyfriend and watch BBC TV. I go shopping and attempt to order in Dutch, only to get a fluent English response. If anyone is interested in improving their English skills I suggest they move to Holland!

An Authentic Czech Knees-Up!

Take my advice, unless you actually LIKE the idea of walking like a cowboy for the first few days of your holiday, avoid knocking hot tea all over your lap during your outward flight. My lack of hand-eye co-ordination in a confined space is a recipe for disaster. Luckily this turned out to be a minor blip during an otherwise extremely pleasant week that we spent in the Czech Republic.

We landed in Prague on Monday 20th June and, despite slightly blistered thighs, had a great three days there exploring the city. We rented an apartment right in the centre of town - an incredible location which seemed to be five minutes walk from just about everywhere you'd want to visit. If you stood on a footstool and craned your neck slightly you could just about catch a glimpse of the skew-whiff gravestones of the Jewish cemetery between the neighbouring roofs. Not quite 'a room with a view' but very nice all the same. You could lie in bed and listen to the horses hooves on the cobbles outside as they carted Japanese tourists around the many photo-opportunity spots of this beautiful city.

Prague was drenched in sun for the whole time we were there, which made it ideal for a bit of hanging-about on terraces. The 'interesting' approach to customer service (the first waiter to break a smile - around day three I think - got a big fat tip!) didn't spoil the experience too much. I've never seen so many tourists in one place as on Charles Bridge. I had visions of them all spilling over the edge, along with the odd juggler, 'comedy' portrait artist jewelry salesman.

On the Thursday morning we collected a hire-car and along with fellow intrepid travellers, Cobi and Maaike, drove South-East across the country towards Zjnomo, near to the Austrian border. I had downloaded about a hundred different maps and route-plans from the internet for this purpose (it seemed to be a daunting task to tackle in a country where all the road signs make absolutely no sense whatsoever). However, my sense of direction is about as bad as my hand-eye co-ordination so it was very lucky that Maaike happens to be a whiz with maps. She managed to direct us smoothly and efficiently towards our hotel before I even worked out which way up I should hold the map.

Zjnomo didn't know what had hit it. Suddenly there seemed to be more Dutch than Czech citizens wandering around town in the lead up to the weekend. Everyone was gathering to see our friends, Ton and Alice, get married.

On the evening we arrived we all assembled for a wine-tasting evening (or, more accurately, a wine-drinking evening, as there was absolutely no sloshing and spitting going on). By the time we'd reached the 8th or 9th glass someone started singing and the songs (Czech, Dutch, English, Swedish..?!) continued into the night.

Peter and I had a lovely visit to the outdoor pool on the Friday, although we both came back red and sore as boiled lobsters - we were not a pretty sight the next day, even when we covered our burnt bits with posh wedding clothes.

Nonetheless, the wedding was a really great day. There are worse ways of spending a Saturday, being wined and dined in a castle overlooking some spectacular scenery. Ton and Alice have more than their fair-share of musically gifted friends, who seemed to relish in the opportunity to provide us all with some fantastic live music. I tasted my first authentic Czech roasted pig, fresh from the spit (the only thing in the place more sunburned than me and P) and downed a few too many Slivovich shots to toast the happy couple.

Here's to Ton and Alice - thanks for a great day!

Daddy Duck

A few weeks ago, a duck with seemingly limited parenting skills decided to make her nest in the central island of the ornamental ponds at the front of the building where Peter and I work. These ponds look pretty but aren't really designed to house wildlife. The problem is that they have a metal lip running round the edge which seem almost custom-built to prevent anything with little legs hopping in and out.

Peter spotted the nest when maintaining the ponds and decided to solve this problem by building a duck-friendly ramp leading down to the water. All he then had to do was sit tight and wait for the eggs to hatch.

Sure enough, a week ago the pond was suddenly filled with quacking. Ten little eggs had become ten little fluffy ducklings. All was going very well until mummy duck decided that it was time to leave their temporary home to go in search of food. The ramps were too slippery for the ducklings' little feet and no matter how high they tried to jump they couldn't get out.

The next day two of the strongest ducklings had managed to jump out but were then stranded outside waiting for the others to acquire the same skill. They were running all over the place and whenever they spotted a pair of human feet getting close they would panic. One even miraculously survived a dash across the taxi lane and a ten foot drop into the Ikea carpark, to be carefully scooped up by Peter and returned to its mother.

Peter then scrapped the ramps and built steps leading to the outside world, but the ducklings obviously had adopted their mother's low IQ and would run round and round the steps rather than up and down them.

All worked out well in the end though. Over the weekend the ducks had obviously worked out the whole step/ramp/jump thing and on monday morning Peter found them proudly swimming up and down the nearby canal with both parents. He was relieved (and perhaps just a little bit sad) to move on from his temporary position of daddy duck.

Queen's Day Children

Last Saturday was Queen's Day. There was all the usual madness taking place in Amsterdam - hordes of orange-clad people suddenly filled the city, looking for the opportunity to buy junk from a pavement store, drink copious biertjes or to wear a very silly inflatable crown. This year I found myself in Vondelpark having a lovely time amongst the Queen's Day Children.

I'm sure if you're six years old then Vondelpark can be a magical playground the whole year round, but on Queen's Day it excels itself. For one day a year, the children take over and show off their various skills for some small change. Proud parents stand by as little Henk or Anja screach away on the violin or perform the actions to 'I'm a Barbie Girl' for the amusement of the public. Some kids show great initiative with their chosen skill - one cute little boy managed to stand statue-still with his right arm in the air for 10 minutes at a time. Another little girl stood on her head until she nearly threw up her candyfloss. Some just choose to dress up or display elaborate face paintings. All seriously cute and a pleasant antidote to their not-so cute drunk adult friends outside the park walls.

Her Majesty's Haircut

I know that Queen's Day is coming up and that residents of the Netherlands are looking at ways of showing their patriotism, but trying to copy the Queen's haircut...

...isn't really what I had it mind.

After a disastrous visit to the hairdresser this week I ended up looking like this...

...All I need is a crown and I'd be laughing. Luckily it was just the way he decided to style it (and I use 'style' in the loosest of terms - he made me stick my head between my knees and blasted it with the hairdryer) so after a good hairwash I was back to my usual non-regal self.

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.

Geen Fietsen Plaatsen

I snapped this earlier this week at the Albert Cuyp market.

Translation: Place no bikes here please.

and then it just kept snowing....

Okay, so I was REALLY wrong about the snow...

Look at my garden this morning!

Okay, so I was wrong about the snow...

Look at how my garden looks this morning!



Perhaps they switched off the under-floor heating last night!

Winter in Amsterdam

I love snow. It must be a throwback to childhood or something, but as soon as I see a few white flakes drift by the window I'm compelled to sit with my nose pressed up against the glass for hours, just watching. Even better, I love the crunch of it under my feet.

Sadly, snow in Amsterdam just doesn't work like that. No matter how cold it gets and regardless of how many fat flakes fall, they seem to disappear the instant they touch the ground. It's like they've installed city-wide underfloor heating. All week we've been getting these big snow storms which promise to instantly transform the city into a winter paradise. If you walk away from the window for 2 minutes to get your camera you return to blue skies, green trees and dry grey pavement again. It's weird.

Regardless of the frustrating weather changes, you can ice skate outdoors in this city all through the winter. Museum Plein has it's own outdoor rink that everyone is welcome to use. It's great to watch little kids with strap-on ice skates slide around with the ice-skating equivalent of a zimmer frame to lean onto - a wooden chair.

Trying to be a Snowboard Dudette

Me and my colleague Lisa organised a long weekend trip to Valloire in the French Alps for 44 colleagues last month. Peter joined us, and as it was his first winter sports holiday he decided to prepare for the trip by tackling a long-overdue ambition - learning to snowboard. I (for my sins) decided to join him. Having always skied, I previously saw snowboarders as those annoying people who cut you up on the slopes, but was curious to find out more.

You may be wondering how one learns to snowboard in a country with no mountains. The Dutch have come up with the perfect solution - revolving carpet. Actually the term 'perfect' is a bit off the mark, because trying to stand up on a giant white (soaking wet) treadmill while both feet are strapped to a board isn't the standard interpretation of perfection. Once you manage it (we were told) then snow will be a piece of cake. Still, it gave us a taste for the real thing and before we knew it we were turning, gliding (and, of course) falling with ease.

After a course of six lessons we couldn't wait to see a mountain. The big weekend arrived and the only thing that stood between us and some deep fresh powder was the fact that it hadn't snowed over the Alps in a month and the sun was shining gloriously over the resort. Still, thanks to the snow cannons, the nursery slopes were white enough for us!

My word of warning to any first-time snowboarder - pack knee pads and wrist guards (and possibly a cushion to stuff down the back of your trousers). If your experiences are anything like mine, you'll love boarding but your knees/wrists/bum won't. I actually lay in the snow on my stomach at one point and pummelled the ground with my fists out of pure frustration (much to the amusement of the passing line of immaculately-controlled six year olds). After two days of falling over, however, things finally 'clicked' and I was off! Unfortunately by the time this happened we had to go back to Holland. Luckily we're going back to the Alps for a whole week next month (and perhaps the bruises will be healed by then).

Lure of the Sofa

Well, it's been nearly half a year since I posted anything, so what have I been doing?

The truth is, I'm a lazy bugger. Possibly the most lazy fitness instructor in the world. Ah the irony! I'm trying unsuccessfully to resist the lure of the sofa. On far too many evenings I get in from the cold and dark and there it is - my trusty siren friend, complete with a pile of little cushions, two or three remote control devices, a fleecy blanket and (all too often) a packet of cookies. I'm telling myself that this is just a brief phase which allows me to adjust to that awful time of the year when suddenly daylight seems to be a rarity. Or perhaps I'm just turning into Homer Simpson. The apartment is slowly turning into a haven of convenience devices. I can now speak to my sister on the computer and simultaneously view her webcam as she pulls a variety of faces at me. I can order Sushi on the internet. I can watch DVD's from my bed.

Perhaps I exaggerate a little. Amsterdam is still providing its daily delights and disasters. I just haven't been writing about them. So here I am again, trying to make up for it.