I know, I know. I should be posting some of the 279 photos of our trip to America, or reviewing some of the restaurants we visited, or telling you all about the surprise the Lovely Husband planned for me and I will, I promise. However, yesterday was a gloriously sunny day in Amsterdam. So glorious that instead of editing photos and cursing myself for forgetting to write down what we ate at each restaurant, we got on our bikes and cycled in the Bos for a couple of hours.

The Bos (or Forest in English) is a mere five minute bike ride from our current front door and once we move to Number 75 (46 days and counting...) will be even less than that. Like many things in Amsterdam it is a man made area which means that while it looks like a huge wild land it has been designed with functional use in mind. There are bike tracks zig zagging through it and large expanses of water as well as smaller ponds. Our closest entrance to the Bos is a bike path so we don't enter at the very congested points (road entrances with parking). We zipped along quite happily in 24 degrees of sunshine and while we definitely saw a lot of people it didn't feel overcrowded at all.

The Bos is home to a huge variety of animals, domestic and wild. You see a lot of horses as there are two riding schools in the Bos. You also see a few Scottish Highland cows roaming freely.

The biggest expanse of water the The Bos is the Nieuwe Meer (New Sea). Its perfect for sailing and there were quite a few power boats out as well.

You can't cycle all the way around the Nieuwe Meer without taking a detour out of the Bos so there is a boat service (web site in Dutch) which takes you and your bike from one side of the Meer to the other for a a couple of Euros. Which is exactly what we did after a brief pause to snack on more chickpea salad (this time with fresh parsely torn up in it) and icy cold bottles of water which we had stashed in frozen wine sleeves in the panier of the Lovely Husband's bike.

We headed home alongside a boat race, crews sliding through the water as excitable supporters rode valiantly along the banks of the river.

I enjoyed every second of it...

Ok, maybe not every second. Inadvertantly cycling into the nudist area was a grave navigational error (oh my eyes, *shudder*) but other than that, truly, a perfect day.

This was my weekend...

 

Clockwise from top right:

• A quote designed and framed for my desk, a further copy in a different colour sent in pdf to a friend in the US.
• My first ever attempt at pillows was a roaring success using this tutorial and these photos as inspiration.
• A small stack of tissue holders which I have been making to practice my sewing skills.
• My Friday flowers - white tulips and pink hyacinths to encourage spring to creep a little closer.

I also made puff pastry for the first time, completely by accident. If this recipe had mentioned that the pastry was puff I would never even have tried it (too fiddly, I can't make puff pastry, I'll just buy it or substitute short crust etc.) But I did it and it was glorious. As suggested I served it with mustard vinaigrette doused green veg, but tender stem broccoli instead of beans as that is what I had in the fridge.

 

It was a good cooking weekend. Sunday night also saw a storming pasta in a creamy sauce of homemade pesto with chargrilled asparagus and a caprese salad on the side.

Roll on next weekend...