I am moving!

I have been thinking about blogging in Dutch for a while and I also wanted to start a blog where I have more options than with blogger. So from now on you can find me on my new personal blog (in Dutch) and my already existing English bookblog!

Works in progress #1

Lately I've been painting again. The portret of the woman I'm already quite happy with, I just want to change the background a little, finish the earrings and clothes, and the rest are just minor details. The portret of the man still needs a bit of work.

Music Monday #63

Full Circle - Half Moon Run

London Adventures

A couple of weeks ago my friend Suzan and I set out for England. We spend the first week of our holiday in London. We stayed in a hostel a little outside the city center, but it was easy to get everywhere by public transportation. In a week we managed to see quite a lot, but I definitely want to go back some time because there are still a lot of places I would like to visit.

We visited the London Zoo, the Natural History Museum, the Science Museum, Covent Garden and famous sites like the House of Parliament, Westminster Abbey, Kings Cross Station (because we are Harry Potter geeks) and Chinatown. My favorite place was probably the Natural History Museum. It was gigantic and we couldn't see everything we wanted to see in one whole day so we had to come back another day. On the Natural History Museum I will do a seperate post, since I made so many photos there.

Our week in London was very busy. Each day we did a lot and we traveled around a lot by public transportation. Our second week in England we spent in Kent, at a very different pace. Public transportation on the country side turned out to be a lot less reliable! Eventhough we didn't do as much in our second week as we did in the first, we still had a great time and we got to relax a bit.

St. Paul's Cathedral

I hadn't been to a zoo in ages, but the London Zoo was a lot of fun. I really appreciated that they had a lot of information on nature conservation and really tried to make people aware of the effect humans can have on nature.

The aquarium at the London Zoo

The reptile house at the London Zoo

The Harry Potter shop at Kings Cross Station

Kings Cross Station

The Big Ben

House of Parliament

Covent Garden

Trafalgar square

Chinatown

The Science Museum

Spring Onion Galette

The recipe for this spring onion galette  comes from Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall's book River Cottage Veg Everyday. It is simple to make and tastes great! I'm going to try to make something like this with asparugus, I think that would also work well.

Music Monday #62

I discovered this song through watching the webseries Dates Like This.

Nathan Reich - Islands

Sunday Spark #1

Lately I haven't been crafting a lot myself, but I have stumbled upon a lot of things that fuel my imagination. I have decided to start a new feature where I will be sharing things that inspire me!

The Reinvention of Normal

Music Monday #61

At the moment this is my favorite song. I can listen to it endlessly and whenever I hear it it brings a smile to my face.

Dotan - Let the river in

Visiting Teyler's museum

During Christmas break I visited Teylers museum in Haarlem. It is the oldest museum in the Netherlands and was founded in the 18th century. I went there many years ago but I was very young and didn't remember too much about it.  When I was very excited after visiting the Ethnographical museum in Stockholm my mom suggested that I might like to visit Teylers again.
At Teylers museum they have some paintings, old coins and a temporary exhibition, but what I like most about it is their collection of natural history items and old science equipment.

Keeping track of the year

Many times throughout my life have I started a diary with the intention to write in it pretty much every day for at least a year. Every time I failed after at about a month and didn't feel like picking it up again until the next year. I have found that I am just no a diary-keeping person. I do like to be able to look back at my year and see wat happened, but I don't always feel like writing about an event. When I've had a long and amazing day and I go to bed I just want to sleep and I do not want to have to write about it. I usually convince myself I will do it later, but it never happens.
What works way better for me is having a memory jar. I did this for the first time in 2012 and I am doing it again this year. Basically I have this jar standing on my nightstand and every time something worth remembering, whether good or bad, takes place, I write it on a slip of paper and put it in the jar. The pieces of paper just have the date on it and a very brief description of what happened. Writing these short notes takes very little time and makes me do it right away, rather than wait till a later moment. At the end of the year it will be easy to see all the things that happened throughout the year.

'1-1 celebrated the new year with Sophie'
'2-1 Visited Teyler's museum'

Music Monday #60

There are very few musicians whose new music I recognize right away, but you only need to hear a few notes of Agnes Obel's songs to know they are hers. Her voice, but even more so her musical accompaniment have something very distinct.

Agnes Obel - The Curse