Tiles in Marrakech

The beauty of the old city of Marrakech lies in the details.
There are lovely tiles everywhere. How I would have loved to go through these doors, up those stairs and see what lies behind!

read more

Pashmina shawls

I brought two beautiful pashmina shawls home from Marrakech. There were hundreds of lovely colors and patterns to choose from and it was so hard to pick only two. I chose one in black and gold...

and another one in pink and gold.

I discovered a golden kilt safety pin in my beads drawers and added some charms.

I am going to wear these a lot.

read more

Shopping the souks

I brought home a beautiful, large, silver platter and a dozen of silver colored tea glasses. I was tempted to buy colored ones, but I realized that my home isn't as colorful as Morocco, so I settled for the silver glasses. I am planning to use them for dessert when we have guests for dinner.

And we found a lovely, large plate to spice up some kitchen blog posts.

read more

..... and those smells .....

We ate tons of these nuts, especially the sugar coated peanuts.

The smell of peppermint was so good!

read more

The beautiful colors of Marrakech

read more

Tea glasses

The Moroccans drink their tea in lovely, colored glasses.

read more

Thé à la menthe

Morocco is all about tea - thé à la menthe - and teapots come in all sorts of different sizes and patterns.

read more

Marrakech

We spent a lovely week in beautiful Morocco, in Marrakech, with all four children (the boys didn't want to appear on my blog). As soon as I have sorted out my pictures, I will show you some more.

read more

Cornwall 2006

I am reorganizing the photo files on my computer and I found some really nice photos that I am going to share with you today.

In the summer of 2006 we travelled to Cornwall. It was a LONG drive, but it was worth it. We loved the coastline, so different from the coastline we have in the Netherlands.

We went as far as Lands End.

We tried to do as much sightseeing as possible with two small children.

We stayed in a house near St. Ives.

We ate fish and chips every other day and tried almost every type of fudge available.

^ This is one of my favorites.

And we found out that our new family member LOVED the beach.

He couldn't get enough of all that sand.

Although it wasn't very warm, we went to the beach every day.

Beautiful memories!

read more

Marrakech

Last week I was in Morocco. Well, I was not really there, but it felt as if it was me, roaming around the souks of Marrakech. And all because of her blog.

Actually we were in Morocco, in 1985. It was my first time on a plane. We booked an organized tour and we were happy we did at that time. We had never been outside of Europe and Morocco was so different. It was...magical! We have visited all the important cities, but these organized tours have one disadvantage, there is not enough time to really get to know the country. The most beautiful of all places was Marrakech. Yes, it was hot and dirty, crowdy and noisy, but so wonderful and full of color...we had never seen anything like this city before. Over the years when we talked about Morocco, we often said to each other that we would like to go back to Marrakech one day and spend more than just an afternoon. And then I stumbled across "My Marrakech". I started reading and I just could not stop anymore. I love her tales and pictures from all around the world, they are so inspiring. I clicked through her whole blog last week and I am really sad now because I have read all there was to read. The good news is that Maryam will soon be opening her own B&B in Marrakech. Oh, how I would LOVE to go there! Well, who knows....

But until then I am going to drink a good cup of Moroccan tea, my eyes closed, dreaming of Marrakech.

read more

Tidying up my cupboard 2

Do you know the feeling that you regret that you haven't bought more? I love the safari print so much and we really should have bought more of these, but travelling with 4 kids, among whom a 2-year-old and a 6-months-old baby, we had the 20 kg hold luggage weight thread hanging above our heads.

read more

Tidying up the cupboards....

It was 1983 and I had just turned 20. We were not married yet and it was the first time we went on vacation together. We had a tent, very cheap (but very heavy as we found out later) and a backpack, even cheaper and heavier. We had an "Interrail" ticket which would bring us all across Europe by train. I remember my father warning my husband: "Please don't hitchhike, but if you do, let my daughter get in the car last and out of the car first!". We went as far as Yugoslavia, where Tito's portrait was still all over the country, where the famous bridge in Mostar hadn't been bombed yet and the walls around Dubrovnik were still intact. I can still see the place where we bought this coffee set. We have travelled a lot since 1983, but this first time, with almost no money, has left a huge impression.

read more