New year's eve

Mid afternoon. I was ready for New Year's eve!

Marjolein and I went to my friends Ruud and Laurien. They have 3 cats and 1 dog. Marjolein was VERY quick becoming friends with this beautiful cat.

HAPPY NEW YEAR! I went outside to watch the fireworks.

And fire crackers.

And bright light.

And rockets.

Ruud opening the second bottle of champagne. We had already popped mine at midnight :-)

Ruud and Laurien.

Marjolein and me.

A great time was had by all of us. We played 2 games of Trivial pursuit and got home close to 6AM.

Clean!

Main event of the day: cleaning my kitchen.

More boerenkool!

Guess where I went today? Yep, IKEA.

IKEA station. Incredibly romantic place.... not.

I made uber Dutch food tonight. Kale mash with smoked sausage and meatballs.

It was SOOOOO good, like you wouldn't believe how good it was. Best one I ever made (out of all 3 times ;-) )

The new lamp

Checking how Restuarant Critique is doing on a mobile device. Not bad actually!

I also bought a new lamp.

Going to work again

Going to work again today. Didn't like having to go to work because a lot of my time that I had planned for myself was used up by dealing with the burglary attempt. So I asked for 2 more days off and got approval. YAY!

Christmas dinner with my family

On the train to Alkmaar to meet my family for a nice Christmas dinner.

Mom, dad and me.

Cassie, Ilse and my cousin Margriet.

Dessert.

Restaurant Critique

I'm in the process of reviving my old Restaurant Critique website. The new domain is ordered. More to follow...

My 2012 Christmas dinner

This morning my door was fixed. New glass was put in. It was a bit of a rush job. Had the guy taken more time he'd have been able to put the glass in nicely but whatever... The holes in the wood did get fixed btw.

In the evening I had my Christmas dinner. It's a special dinner for a few of the special people in my life.

This year I had some real proper and good champagne!

Marjolein, Gerrit and Nicole came over. I made ragout in freshly baked whole meal buns. Very nice!

The main course was glaced carrots, salmon on a bed of veggies and roast potatoes. Everything worked out very well.

Nicole brought cake for dessert. All different kinds and they were delicious.

I had a fantastic time and I think my guests did as well :-)

Second dessert course ;-)

Ragout!

I prepared the ragout for tomorrow's Christmas dinner. It worked out very well! Another skill for me ;-)

In the evening I went to see the Hobbit with Marjolein. I got us VIP seats which was great coz it's a 3 hour seat! I liked the movie but only because I like seeing phantasy worlds and adventures.

We had a few drinks in Mulligans afterwards. The session was nice.

The miracle stuff

I went to the market to get some stuff for my Christmas dinner. The butcher around the corner there was packed! They had one guy standing outside directing people and making sure not too many people would come in. There was a big line-up outside!

I bought this stuff to treat my locks with. They're all working smoothly again now. Miracle stuff this is!

Fucking burglars!

So I met Marjolein and Gerrit for drinks, dinner and more drinks at Mulligans. Just after my third sip of lovely, lovely Guinness my upstairs neighbour calls me to let me know I better come home because I got burgled. She had already phoned the police as well. ARGH! So I had to break off this evening that I was very much looking forward to and Marjolein and I went to my house to find one of the (wired!) windows in my door smashed in. When the police arrived, 1.5 hours later, we entered and thankfully noticed the door was still locked and thus nothing was stolen. THANK GOD!

We then ordered Indian take away and had a nice evening but I'd rather have stuck with the original plans...

At work I was given a chocolate Christmas tree :-)

At home I was given other pressies by Marjolein. She bought me a dvd I wanted. I'm very happy with it, it's a movie I really like!

And also she bought me a bag os masaman curry paste. I looooooooooved this last time we had dinner at a thai resto in Haarlem.

And she also gave me this Christmas card that I like a lot. It's the nicest one I got this year :-)

The cloud

Sun rise.

As I wanted to go home I kinda had the feeling there was something above me. Yeah, a big fucking rain cloud!

More Christmas cards :-)

9

I worked from home today coz the plumber was coming by again. I showed them where I had seem the water but they wanted to see the water themselves so they were not going to do anything. I also told them about my chimney theory and then they went up on the roof. When they came back they said there was one chimney without a cap on it so maybe that was the culprit. Let's keep our fingers crossed!

In the evening I met Patricia and Martijn for dinner in town. It was a very nice and fun evening.

I walked home through the nine streets area.

Dark were the canals.

1000 years of Amsterdam

My book about how Amsterdam developed as a city over the past 1000 years arrived today. Very exciting! I love reading about Amsterdam history :-)

Another day, another Christmas card!

The manual / cottage pie

It was dripping a bit when i was on the ferry. But it was not very cold today. Dark and depressing. But I felt good :-)

At work, my Mustang owner's manual was waiting for me. It was a lot smaller than I thought. These days your mobile phone's manual is bigger!

It was interesting reading though. I had no idea about a few things. Now I can't wait to try them out.

In the afternoon Bjorn and Marijke bought us oliebollen for their birthdays! At this stage they didn't know I was making pictures.

But then... Bjorn was like a bunny staring at the headlights and Marijke just ran off.

There she goes, fleeing back in to her little fish bowl office.

The Christmas tree decorations that Tanja put up in our office tree are really nice. Silver and blue, I like.

The railway station has a bigger tree...

I received more cards today. I'll send my soon too.

I made a cottage pie for dinner. Feeds 4. Bit much. But tasted great! :-)