Peas please

These little felt fellas were sewn up by me for Su over one day during the infernally nasty, rainy days we had. The pod has wire round the rim to keep its shape.

Houten about in the Nederlands

Flying off to stay with our friends Yvonne and Onno was a fantastic holiday break that we really needed. From a 3.00am start to EMA, then Schiphol to Amsterdam (where we spent the day well away from the tourist areas/ coffee shops/ window shoppers), then back to Schiphol and Utrecht, then Utrecht to Houten. Thankfully Yvonne was waiting to pick us up, tired bunnies that we were. After a good night sleeping, we ended up going to Utrecht again. Great day, except for the centipede in the salad incident - least said about this the better!

Wednesday was spent going to (via Gouda, Den Haag and other places due to a bridge out) Leiden. Leiden was great and if you ever wondered if taxidermy was still happening then check out the Naturalis Museum. Loads of animals in normal poses, and fossils and stuff. I wondered what happened to all the old stockings/ tights in the worlds and now I know that the special animal stuffers use them in Leiden. The castle (Burcht) was pretty cool and inhabited by a lot of Goths/Emos who'd obviously been enjoying the delights of the local coffee shops and the varieties of dried stuff there within.

Something we did realise was how freaky we must have looked because we were walking everywhere, the Dutch however prefer to cycle and not just any bike. Oh no, it's a 1950's Oxford university/ shopping basket/ hello vicar/ pop to the local shop type. I think I only spotted 3 BMX bikes and maybe 3 mountain bikes (ok there's not that many mountains in the Nederlands).

We've also discovered the delights of licorice tea. Nice

CHECK OUT THIS: - Slideshow

Go fast, turn left

During the summer, of rain, we were invited to go see some short track racing by Stephen (Su's bro). At the new Teeside Speedway Park we watched people going fast and turning left, sometimes with a hint of that old Spectrum game where you got to smack the other rider with chains and sticks. During a break, after a moment of fisticuffs from two of the quad racers, it was time to wander around the pits and have a look see at the bikes. A few of the obvious CCMs, a few Harley badged Rotax jobs and probably the best use of TL1000s engine ever, one of the lovely Thunderbike bikes. Given a real wish to have one of these short track babies on the road, I may however be slightly biased. Oh, I shouldn't forget a Triumph triple. Strange but true.