Home again

We’re back! It was absolutely freezing in Amsterdam. I went around wearing a cord shirt, two jumpers, a quilted coat & a fleecy cape. On my head was a woolly hat, a scarf wound around my neck & fleecy lined boots on my feet. In other words a real Bibendum, the Michelin man.

Most days were dry though overcast. The one day we were totally free from arranged trips was sunny so we had a good day to go on a canal cruise around the city & walk back to the hotel from the Rijksmuseum. Sunday evening it really threw it down. We got absolutely soaked as we walked back to the hotel from the maritime museum. I was packing that night & feared we might end up flying home in damp clothes. Fortunately everything dried out by the morning.

The journey back home was quite spectacular. It was another clear day, so it was easy to see the land below for quite a distance. Inevitably we came into cloud, but even that was interesting to look out at. Usually the clouds form a cotton-wool carpet, flat & boring. This time great columns erupted from them. When the columns of cloud reached a certain height it looked as though someone had taken a knife across them, giving them an incredibly flat top. I suspected such columns were suggestive of bed weather below.

As we came over to England, & started to descend, I was surprised & stunned by the snow on the Pennines. It didn’t look very thick but I wasn’t expecting to see any. As we flew on to Liverpool, I thought there’d been more snow, then I realised it was the white crests of the waves rolling onto the Lancashire coast. It must have been very rough at sea on Monday. By the time we reached John Lennon airport we ran into hail. We hastily got to the hotel across the way to collect our car.

Our next bit of spectacular was as we approached Lancaster on the motorway & could see across Morecambe Bay to the Lakeland fells. They’d clearly had a heavy snowfall during our absence, thick & virginal-looking, much thicker than that over the Pennines. As we got to the promenade we became aware of how high the tide was, a churning mass of grey-brown, with leaping white crests.

Today we’ve got the wind howling around the house. The garden gate squeaks away. Hopefully our new fencing will survive the onslaught & for once we won’t have to replace any panels after the storm.

For all the bad weather, it’s good to be back home, to be snug in the warmth. It seems a lot longer than five nights away. We’ve come back with renewed vigour, even if a bit weary immediately, not helped by an urgent visit to the dentist yesterday – a filling came out while we were away so needed remedying before it became too painful.

As for our feelings about Amsterdam & all things Dutch, I will tell you that in other blogs in the near future. Until then, bye…

 The above was written yesterday, Wednesday. I made frequent endeavours to post this yesterday. Unfortunately it was impossible to go on the net throughout Lancashire yesterday.It was a relief to discover it wasn’t just me that was having difficulties. I suspect it had something to do with the storms that raged all day.