Another Interesting week or two.

Life is full of twists and turns, sometimes we get lulled into a false sense of security bumbling along in a comfortable groove, not expecting anything much to change. Then we are thrown one of those curved balls that knocks things off track. We have recently had a couple of those balls in quick succession. 

We had been busy planning for a weekend away in my spiritual home, Amsterdam. We had booked a break with our friends Madeline and John, they hadn't been away this year and we were all looking forward to it. We had just returned from our weekend with Rod and Tina, when Tom was taken ill. Without going into the details we found ourselves with an emergency admission into hospital and a whole load of worry. 

It was quite strange for me, because its usually Tom who is having to worry about me having various operations and procedures so this was a very unusual experience for me. He spend some time in hospital and had a whole raft of tests, eventually they were able to eliminate the most serious of our concerns, but he has been left with a very long recovery period after contracting a virus. He is getting better but it could take up to a year to return to full health and in the mean time he is having blood tests twice a week and meeting with the consultant so they can keep an eye on him. 

Just when we thought we were on the up, Dad ended up back in the same hospital with his reoccurring intestinal problems. Thankfully my brother was able to help me out with that and he cared for Dad .

Toms  virus is not contagious, so he decided that he wanted to continue with our Amsterdam trip as long as we were able to build in some rest time for him. This we did, so he had a lie down for a few hours each afternoon, in fact I was the only one who didn't have a lie down!!!! It worked out well we did all we wanted to do and Tom wasn't exhausted. 

When I booked the weekend I had asked Easy jet for some assistance for Mad, she is waiting for a knee operation and walking distances was difficult. They really excelled themselves and we were very well looked after both at Luton and Schiphol airports. There is a huge distance to walk particularly at the Amsterdam end, so we were able to stay with her and all get a lift !!

On the first day we took a walk around the shops, there were many cheese shops to explore!

  

There were a lot of people around but we went to the floating flower market just to the left of this tower. I bought back a couple of bags of bulbs for next spring.

Our hotel was in Rembrandt Square, it was still nice an warm in the evenings, so we chose a cafe there to have a bite to eat on the first evening.

There are so many places to eat and drink in Amsterdam, I think you could go somewhere different for years !!

I think that's my last Amsterdam trip for this year, I will have to manage until next year for another trip!! 

Amsterdam mijn favoriete stad ,

Vaarwel ik zal je missen.