The blossoms

On our paper route we encountered this tree in blossom. It looked awesome.

New leaves

I woke up slowly and watched car shows with Silver.

Well, I watched and he had a hard time waking up ;-)

My little oak tree is starting to make leaves again. YAY!

Eikie is doing great!

My little oak tree "Eikie" is doing fantastic! I guess he likes being outside :-)

"When you say what you think, thinking is essential"

Oakie

I brought more stuff to the storage. The space is now getting full, only a few more things can be added but I don't have a lot left so that's all OK.

I also moved my little oak tree to my new home.

He has to stay outside now so I made him a nice pot with fresh dirt. I hope he'll like it here...

Bigger leaves

My tree is making nice new leaves!

More leaves

My little oak tree is making new leaves again. Cool!

A big crane has been at the neighbour's the last couple of days.

The trees

Milan and I cycled through an area close by. Yesterday's storm did a lot of damage, there were fallen trees everywhere...

Some of these trees are over a century old. What a pity :-/

...

Top.

And bottom...

Bottom...

... and top, with a car underneath. Someone got very lucky as the roof hasn't caved in.

The oak-update

My oak tree is now making a new branch with 5 leaves. And close to the top you can maybe also see the tiny green dot on the stem. That's gonna be a new branch! Howmany people do you knbow that have an indoor oak tree huh? :-)

And this is the construction site close to work, infront of the HEMA office. It changes daily.

The second proteine diet, day 4.

This morning I got unpleasantly surprised by 2 big trucks and a load of workmen circling around the tree in front of my house. I immediately went outside to ask them what they were going to do. It appeared that this tree is rotting near the bottom and has a high risk of being blown over during a heavy storm. So that's that. The council had stuck a note on the tree but on the side so that I never saw it. It's a real shame because it's a beautiful and rather large tree and it makes the canal I live on very green in summer. I'm quite sure it will be replaced but a tree also is 'life' and I'm always sad when they cut a tree down. I don't even like throwing away plants...

Just before 8AM they started cutting it up in pieces. Very efficient. I'm sure it will be totally gone in an hour or so.

There goes the first branch.

While one truck reaches for the next branch, the other one cuts up the previous branch.

And then it was business as usual again. Take the ferry to work. The boy on the right looked like he was not yet ready for today ;-)

I had this soup for lunch. It's diet soup. Spinach and chicken I believe.

Walking to Simone's house I spotted this tree a few times before. I like it a lot. It looks like fireworks :-)

Still playing, still getting new warriors, still enjoy this game :-)

The Massaman curry

The weather was great today! I walked to the Apple store a few blocks down and made a selfie on the way with the sun on my face. Happy days!

This is the fountain in front of the Hotel American. I went to the Apple tore across the road to see the differences between 11" and 13" Macbooks. IF, I'm saying "IF" here, so IF I buy one, it will have to be 13". 11" is just too small... But it's also about a thousand euros and that's rather steep.

On my way home again I got beef, coconut cream, potatoes, peanuts and onions. Marjolein gave my this Thai massaman curry paste a long time ago and I had to use it before the use-by date expired.

So I started combining the paste and the cream.

Then I added beef, potatoes, peanuts and onion and let it simmer for 1.5 hours.

I love the shoots on my little Christmas tree.

I really need to re-pot it in a bigger pot soon...

Meanwhile my curry was finished so I quickly cooked some pandan rice. Very nice dish! I did learn though that the peanuts and potatoes can go in a bit later. The beef could've cooked longer.

After dinner I met Mic for a bit of squash. We did some old-men squash tonight. Still good fun and every calorie burned is good.

After-squash in the sun :-)

We sat in the sun and chatted for a while.

The protein diet, day 17.

Very early morning I left Simone's because she has to work during Easter. I took the train to Zwanenburg where my car is. This old silo tower belongs to the old sugar factory in Halfweg/Zwanenburg.

I put up a shelf and a coathanger which was nice working on. Now I don't have to use my car;s trunk for storage and I also don't have to put shit on the floor all the time. It also makes it a little bit more "my"garage :-)

When I got home early afternoon I found this Happy Easter card from my folks. Thank you! :-)

I made lunch. I can eat fruit again and small ammounts of dairy so I got low fat yoghurt and low fat cheese. Very nice!

The little Christmas tree that I bought is doing well. New shoots everywhere. The other one died and left me. It didn't survive the mistreatment from it's original owner...

The high-tea

This week, my little oak tree grew another 9cm. Just like that.

Simone doesn't miss an opportunity to write her name in my dust. This is the only spot visible to the eye of the camera. She did it in at least 2 more spots. I guess I should dust soon ;-)

In the afternoon, Ilse, my folks and I drove to a venue in Putten to celebrate my uncle and auntie's 40th wedding anniversary. They organised a high-tea which was lovely.

Mom and dad.

They arranged for us to see the next door museum about Putten and its surroundings which was very nice I think.

They also arranged for all their visitors to go up a 38 metres tall tower and enjoy the view.

I like that house.

The view was nice. Pity it was cloudy though but hey, this is The Netherlands after all, where we are happy when summer is on a weekend ;-)

There were trees growing on top of the tower as well, which was really cool.  I dig towers like this.

There was also a side-extension. Not for people with fear of heights ;-)

My dad, tower-guy and Ilse.

My mom striking a fantastic eating-pose again ;-) Ilse in the middle talking to another aunty, and my dad.

I had a very nice afternoon!

On the way home I got dropped off at Simone's and had a lovely evening with her as well :-)