A witch for an evening…

Do something with witches, Herba encouraged in the latest Mach’ Was challenge. Two things spring to mind when I think of witches.

The first thing that springs to mind is one of my favourite children’s books that I used to read to my own children when they were small. It’s called Room on the Broom by Julia Donaldson, illustrated by Axel Scheffler. Here’s a lovely reading of that book on YouTube…

For my kids I always read the Dutch version…

It’s the story about a witch who picks up and helps some animals and lets them travel with her on her broom. When she in turn is in danger her new friends all help her. The kids loved that book, as did I. The text had a great rhythm to it and was clever which made it so much fun to read and we loved the illustrations too.

The second thing I think of when I hear the word ‘witch’ is that time 13 years ago when I was a witch for an evening. I had decided with a friend of ours that we should celebrate Halloween at our house for once. It is not a holiday that is normally celebrated here so we thought it would be fun to try it out. The kids dressed up as a vampire and a cat respectively and my friend and I dressed up as witches…

As witches and a vampire and a cat we tried our hand at carving a pumpkin…

That was harder work than we had ever thought. The end result was quite nice but it was the first and the last time I have ever carved one…

We played games, like the typical Dutch party game ”koekhappen” (take a bite out of a dangling piece of cake, in this case a donut, with your hands tucked behind your back) or the kids tackling Mr E as they liked to do every evening after dinner until they became too big and strong. Mr Esther is never one for dressing up but he did sport a fancy embroidered kippah we have and briefly also borrowed mini me’s cat ears…

As a witch, I did my best to stir my witch’s dinner brew in a cauldron…

And yes, at one point in the evening witch Esther also read the Room on the Broom book to the kids…

… which makes this post come full circle!

We never did such a Halloween celebration again, the kids had a few Halloween parties at daycare for a few years and that was enough. I do remember this one occasion and that book very fondly, though. Should I ever dress up for Halloween again, it will always be as a witch.

A garden for living in

For the Mach’ Was challenge to do something with gardens, here I’m doing something with mine. We’ve been living in our current house for almost 15 years now, which has both a front and a back garden. Not huge but big enough and green and a bit of an oasis for us. These two gardens have given us so much joy and so many memories over the years…

The summer after we moved in, the back garden became a building ground. We wanted grass and so took out a lot of the stone tiles…

The garden was used as a playground by our children (and our cats) when they were small…

It’s been a bit of a sculpture gallery as well…

Our gardens, front and back, are a place to chill…

… and eat and celebrate birthdays and anniversaries and national holidays…

They are places to be worked on, like trimming the overgrowth or making the front garden look nice again…

… and for our cats to enjoy (I’m including my old black and white cat who died years ago as well)…

… we use it for little family photo sessions with the kids, or with some of my siblings, or for recording video messages for someone’s birthday…

… we sometimes do our actual jobs in our gardens, especially during Covid lockdowns (and our neighbour’s cat sometimes comes to visit as well)…

… we gaze at objects flying over our garden, like a police helicopter a few weeks ago, or, preferably, hot air balloons flying over on some evenings in the spring and summer months…

We enjoy the spring and summer blossoms…

… and the winter…

… and magical lights at night…

Yes, we really enjoy our gardens and the lives we get to lead in them. Mr. Esther and I are talking of moving in a few years time to another town and a nice large flat with a balcony when the kids definitely leave the house. I wonder if we really will do that, though – move to a place without a garden. I think we may miss our own outside green space too much.

Asparagus

Last week I saw Herba’s reminder to do something with asparagus for the latest Mach’ was challenge. I am not a cook and although I do like to eat asparagus, we don’t really cook that much at home with asparagus, so I have no recipes to share. However, due to this challenge, asparagus has really entered my consciousness this past week.

We ate out twice in the past week, once on a Saturday and then again on Monday, when it was a holiday here (Pentecost) and both times green asparagus was served with our meals. I don’t know how they seasoned it but especially the grilled asparagus in the picture on the left was truly delicious.

Yesterday at the supermarket there was a whole asparagus display…

… and in the evening an abbreviated version of this asparagus ad was shown on Dutch television. You’ll have to click “watch on YouTube” to see the whole commercial…

… and it might be worth it, just for this little suggestive blink and you’ll miss it moment…

I think I am seeing asparagus in a whole new light now.

Snowdrops

The ‘Mach’ Was’ theme this time around is to do something with snowdrops (in German “Schneeglöckchen” – such a sweet word!). “Easy!” I thought as I had seen one in our front garden. That snowdrop had been trampled but I figured I’d find others around everywhere. Alas, I did not! For the past few weeks, during every walk, I kept my eyes peeled to the ground in the hope of finding some snowdrops. Last week I finally found a remnant of the last few snowdrops…

… but mostly I found daffodils and hyacinths and even the first tiny daisies…

… but no more snowdrops! Spring has started here, leaving the snowdrops of the end of winter behind.

I figured I should find something more constructive to contribute to this challenge than not finding any snowdrops so I did a little online search and found this video…

For once my ‘Mach’ was’ contribution has something to do with actually making something. However, I’m not a crafter myself, I never have been and I have no patience for it, but this does look like something that is quite easy for someone else to make. So, happy snowdrops crafting, should you be so inclined!

Tea time

This time the Mach’ Was (Do Something) challenge is to do something with tea. I have little inspiration and time (as I want to get back to reading) to do anything original with this topic, but I couldn’t let the challenge go by without making my love for tea known. I don’t drink coffee, have never liked coffee and doubt I ever will. For me it is tea all the way.

I drink tea every day, either a lot during the day in big mugs when I work or after work in the evenings…

I drink tea on holidays, especially when I’m in England. I had tea at Althorp, Princess Diana’s ancestral home…

… and tea and scones in York, Colchester, at the Victoria and Albert museum and once at the chique St Pancras Renaissance hotel in London with my brother and in many more places…

I like herbal teas best and have three kinds of tea I like to drink most. There’s a tea of 20 herbs with small soluble kernels you pour hot water over that I love to drink daily or there’s my other favourite, Rooibos (‘redbush’) tea from South Africa.

Unlike the English, I never drink my tea with milk and hardly ever with sugar, unless it’s my husband’s favourite Early Grey tea, with that I do want a little sugar. The only exception to tea with milk is when I drink my beloved chai tea latte. Here in the Netherlands I drink it at Starbucks but I like the English Costa version better or the chai tea latte I had with Linda in Tynemouth near Newcastle the day after meeting Richard Armitage at the Newcastle Film Festival in 2018.

I really love my daily cups of tea…

In fact, I think I’ll go and enjoy one now.