Happy & Tired ... (& long post alert!)

So I'm back from the foreign flat land ... and loved every minute pretty much!!

I came back on my weight limit due to lots of craft goodies from the classes (some in more state of completion than others...) and the odd bit of Dutch goodies. I even got Cheese & Sprinkles for my taxi fare... and brought back a present for Dr T (who won't got to NL on hols as they speak Dutch there ... even if pretty every Dutch person speaks pretty good English!) of a different type of cheese & some dark chocolate spread (now its no longer sold in Tesco...).

So I've been really busy being really creative ... I did some fab classes. I can't quite decide which one was best ... I think there is a top3 but which is in which place I'm not sure. I made a wooden memory box with Lance Anderson (aka Mr Pickle), an album looking at a year with 2 pages to a month ... a good way to do lots of photos and cover a lot without being overwhelmed, with the lovely Donna Downey. Then finally to a teacher which I felt connected on the same level with (maybe it was the whole rucksack carrying sort stuff out yourself attitude?) ... I knew from the class before she was an ex-engineer ... and then checked out her website & blog ... she's an ex-civil engineer! It was page layout class where panorama photos form an arch and the letters for the titles seem to float in the air. So the Karen Burniston Class is currently tempting me where a house pops out the page!! She did a class a bit like the house bit but with a flowerpot; it was home décor stuff so not for me in our dinky 1 bed flat! I think the final person is the one that has inspired me to be more creative and have a go with more 'paper engineering'.

There were lots of other classes that I loved and I have to say I've come away with lots of inspiration and a desire to be more constructive with things on my pages to make them more interactive. Its not something I've done much other than opening flaps ... so watch out for a space near me! I think also I'll do more printing out of smaller sizes of photos than my standard 6x4 as I found it liberating cutting some of photos down to size but often found I liked a photos but wanted to keep the proportions in for the details so a small format of size would be better.

Then it was onto Amsterdam, it was hot and I really struggled with the heat particularly when heading back to Centraal Station, on a busy tram with a full backpack when Holland are playing in Euro 2008 (aka EK in NL) that night! All the bike riding on traditional style bikes has inspired me to enjoy a bit of bike riding when we become a 2 bike household in July (and Dr T gets my mountain bike to use when I pick up my old Peugeot bike from the olds, and I try to teach him how to cycle on the road!).

But I headed back and took off passing where I stayed below me (it was a clear day and I could make out where I had been on the coast) I felt a pang of sadness .. when would I next be seeing the Netherlands? ... they've left a soft spot in me. I think it's the logic and organised manner of the Germans but with a softer more relaxed edge that does it! (oh and it seems the same attitude seen in towel placement goes with sharing stuff in classes when put in the centre of a table with the Germans). I think there is a lot of country I'm desperate to explore (probably by car this time) but sadly I feel that it won't be until end up on my next craftfest, and certainly not with Dr T!

Biggest surprise of the weekend? How much French I spoke!!! I ended up chatting in my best 'franglais' (i.e. French until you reach a word you can't remember then say it in English and describe) outside the class as I was waiting with some ladies from near Lille. Then they sat behind me in class... and we found we knew of places each other had photos of, they knew Canterbury from trips and I knew of Berck (more of the surprise) from holidays there (although it was a surprise to see the beach in sun in photos .. we were usually there in October or February!). It certainly made me feel more confident in my spoken French as I've not really spoken it much in ages and when I have, Becca has been about who jumps in with her fluent French as soon as you pause to think of a word ... so it worked out well, particularly as I head for Paris at the end of the month... I even managed to act as a bit of a translator for the American running the class as there were bit they weren't sure of what she was saying and I did the describing or a sketch for what she was on about, of which 'kite' stands out. The aforementioned sunny beach photo was of a kite festival, except the French lady concerned didn't know the word 'kite' so it was a point to the photo job ... and then they asked me to write the word down for future reference...

So it was a good mixing pot of Europeans ... and I felt at home, after missing out on such diversity for years ... this is why I love to travel and use the languages I learnt at school... I'd got good at 'guess the Dutch' from the knowledge of French & German, along with my most used Dutch phrase of Danke U weild (?sp), which means 'thank you' ...