October 11, 2004
lazy weekend
We had such a laid-back weekend, one of those perfect ones where the art of doing-almost-nothing was perfected and happily coincided with sunny, if very cool, weather. Always a bonus at this time of year!
Friday night Jacob took his new babysitter, Emma, for a roadtest and we were all happy with the results. Ron and I took the opportunity to go and eat out. Embarassingly we didn't get far, in fact we stayed in the street we live in but our excuse is that Vamos a Ver, our local Spanish restaurant, is worth staying close-to-home for! I'm sure with practice we'll eventually venture a bit further from home.
Saturday we took Jacob to the local childrens' farm. We've been a few times before but this time we were practically besides ourselves with excitement when we realised Jacob would be able to wobble on his own two legs amongst the geese, ducks and chickens. Jacob seemed as keen as we were and we promptly launched him upon the fowl-world of the Pijp. He had his hand snuffled by a hungry piglet twice his size, nearly lost THAT pointing finger to a large goose and had his knees poked by duck bills. Safely up off the ground again he also patted some ponies, and gazed longingly at the goats sunbathing, always his favourites.
We haven't been down Scheldestraat for months so we made a quick pitstop at Ziwinds to get the bugaboo's tyres pumped up, stopped at La Delize to find it is La Delize no longer but made some purchases nevertheless, before venturing down to the Cafe D'overkant where we found a table in the sun to sit and enjoy a coffee.
On the way back we stopped at Boek 'n Serve where we discovered it's Children's Book week. As a part of kinderboekenweek Eric Carle's Vader Zeepard could be had for (Euros)2.50. Besides the most gorgous illustrations the story is also really sweet being all about fish dads and the eggs or young they were carrying or babysitting.
Once home I decided to try Clotilde's Zuchinni and Pinenuts with arborio rice. Since Jacob's first birthday we have been putting into practice that we all three eat together. The down side is that we have to eat at 6.00pm! The up side is all sitting down together and seeing Jacob enjoying his food. Because of the pinenuts this was the first time we've had to give Jacob a different meal to ourselves. Clotilde's recipe was a great success with even Ron enjoying a dish made almost entirely from zuchinni's. I do think it would be better though with pasta, as in Clotilde's original recipe.
After quickly checking the Australian election results and sinking into a small depression, I revived enough to finish off the basis for Kittyville's Lil' Devil Baby Hat. Now all I have to do is figure out how to pick-up stitches so I can work on the ears and other bits and pieces.
Sunday is Ron's morning to sleep in so I took Jacob out on his tricycle to enjoy the morning sun and take some photos along the Amstel. After lunch we went for a ride along the Amsteldijk in the direction of Ouderkerk aan de Amstel. I ride along here quite regularly but Ron only gets the odd chance at weekends. Jacob sits in his "kinderstoel" attached to the steering wheel of my bike. Spinning along in the sun besides the river obviously agreed with him as he waved and babbled incessantly! While the rest of Amsterdam is surounded by urban sprawl its a quirk of this area that although almost in the center of Amsterdam, it is only a 5-10 minute bike ride before you are in the country. We stopped at Klein Kalfje where Jacob ordered his first ever hot chocolate before cycling back home just in time for his afternoon nap.
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