Tulips and buzzing noise in my head

Interestingly I started writing this a week ago then, don’t know, things got a bit too busy, and lost the momentum, but getting back into it today on Earth day.

Spring is just amazing, and we really miss being out and about and enjoying nature at its best - flowers, birds, butterflies, a day by the beach, whatever. I even miss the craziness before leaving the house for a fun family day, getting everything and everyone ready, where by the time we get in the car to leave I am all sweaty and pissed off, and then I need to go back because we forgot something. Fun family day indeed. Surely that only happens to us! 😂

Funniest and most annoying thing I saw on Facebook recently was the ‘Bluebell trail run’ event being postponed. How on Earth do you postpone an event involving seasonal flowers?!  ‘You can never hold back spriiing.‘ Ok, now Tom Waits is stuck in my head again.

Couple of years ago in April we visited our friends in Holland and I got to check Keukenhof, the tulip park, off my bucket list. That place is the most amazing I have ever seen, the commitment and passion that goes into getting it ready for visitors each year is incredible, and sadly this year millions of people had to miss out on spending a magnificent day there. I follow them on Facebook and love their posts, showing the world how incredibly beautiful the park looks, but it comes nowhere near the the feeling of actually being there. When we visited, it was the most sunniest day you could hope for, we had the best company in our friends and Dan's aunt, who drove from Brussels to see us there, and I even managed to escape on my own for an hour and walk around the park taking all in. Best thing was, in true Dutch style, they had plenty of places to entertaining the children - from a large playfround to an animal petting area where the girls could have spent the whole day.

This year we had some beautiful tulips in our garden, quite surprisingly that we managed to plant the bulbs with the everything being so busy last year. For a couple of weeks they brought us so much joy - once again a proof of how we learn to appreciate the little things in life. We also set up a green house and seeded all sorts of vegetables with the girls. They loved seeing the little plants growing and looking after them. Soon it will be time to move them to bigger pots, then a raised bed that we don’t have, but we can be creative and improvise something (since first writing this, Dan managed to build a raised bed out of a pallet). This was a great opportunity for Ariana to earn her ‘grow your own’ Brownie badge, and she even showed her plants during the Brownies Zoom meeting. Crazy times! We plan to leave some plants at some of our friends' doors, hoping they would bring a smile on their faces.

My parents had a massive garden back home, with a huge orchard next to it, and lots of beehives around. They were always very dedicated to growing their own vegetables (they had so much they could feed 10 families with their crop) and it was all organic, tasted amazing and everything was so well organised. Walking around the garden, hearing the bees buzzing, looked and smelled gorgeous, particularly in the summer when all the fruit would be ripe. There is nothing like picking a fruit from your own trees. Ariana said last years the apples in her grandmother’s garden were the best ones she’s ever had. 😍 My Mum makes homemade apricot, sour cherry and plum jams. And give out loads to family and friends, as there is more than plenty, from probably what is over 100 trees. We never counted them. Thinking back, I have no idea how my parents managed to look after everything, as they had jobs as well as a child. Clearly not a very demanding and clingy child. 😂 And on top of that, there were the bees, at some point probably around 50-60 beehives to look after. Collecting the honey was quite hard work, and we had the extractor set up in the garage. Again, the sound of honey drops on the extractor’s surface, the smell of the honey, and tasting the honey as it would flow into buckets, something very special. I tried to look after the bees when my Dad couldn’t do that anymore, and in spite of knowing all the theory and even having helped him sometimes, I was unable to do much. The bees sensed my fear and I constantly felt like they were attackingg me, although they probably weren’t, so my attempt wasn’t very successful. My Dad on the other hand was confidently handling them with bare hands and they never stung him. Maybe I gave up too quickly, maybe I wasn't in the right place for it, maybe one day I will have another attempt.

'Nough said! Little Miss Bossy decided to finally put her helmet back on, after weeks of refusing to do so (we might have caught the skin under her chin 🙈) and she's ready to get her stabilisers off, so that's our exercise sorted for the next days for sure.