New beads are: The first glass bead is the Double Flower (dark purple), a retired bead. The second is the Forget-Me-Not bead. The last new one is the last one on the chain, the beads that came with the I Love Trollbeads book in The Netherlands, the tulip.

I got the Forget-Me-Not bead in memory of my father, the others just for fun.

A different brand of bead-charms is Pandora. Both my SIL and my aunt (in law) have Pandora bracelets, but compared to Pandora beads, I like the Trollbeads better. They are more based in classical design and mythology and have a more designer look to them.

Last week H. and I were together for 5 years, and he wanted to give me a Trollbeads bracelet (totally his idea, I swear!). So, last Saturday we went to the jewelers in Hoorn and spent some time picking out a bracelet with perfect beads. We had of course already looked online to see which beads we both liked.

In the end he gave me an 18cm bracelet with a forget-me-not clasp. The beads we chose were the hedgehog (called porcupine in the US?) because H. always has a prickly beard, the Antique Flowers (new style) for our five years and the skein of wool because I love crafts (see my blog ;)).

H. and I have had a lot of fun looking through the catalog, picking out beads that symbolize just about anything :D

While in Bern I visited the BärenPark (Bern’s bears), the National Historic Museum with a great exhibit about Einstein and the Natural History Museum with wonderful diorama’s.

For more pictures, see the slideshow below.

The follow day we checked out of the hotel, got ourselves breakfast at the bakery around the corner and walked to the Bonnefantenmuseum. We ate our breakfast sitting on the river’s edge. The museum was nice, but we only saw the Medieval collection and the old masters, as modern art doesn’t really interest either of us. That’s where we saw the funny little man in the picture. After our visit to the museum, we went back into town where we visited some antique shops, some more bookstores and the rest. We picked up some more books (you can never have enough!) and other knick knacks. We were pretty tired, so after a quick dinner at KFC, we headed back to the station. Luckily we didn’t have any problems on the return journey.

We first went to St. Albans, a short drive from Luton. We visited the cathedral there and had lunch. Afterwards we started on a hellish drive on the M-roads around London, to Canterbury. We got there in streaming rain, and after a bit found our hotel. After checking in we went to the city to check it out.

The next day we visited Canterbury, where we visited St. Augustine’s Abbey, the Canterbury Cathedral, the Museum of Canterbury and of course shopped a bit in the city. In the evening we had a lovely waterside dinner in the courtyard of a 16th century weavers’ house.

On our third day we drove from Canterbury to Battle. There we visited the Battle Abbey, built on the site of the Battle of Hastings in 1066. After our visit there we went to Pevensey Castle, where William the Conqueror and his armies set foot on land in 1066. We spent the night in a lovely B&B near Battle.

The next day we had a hellish drive from Battle to Portland, which was more queing than driving. We stopped for lunch at the Netley Abbey, the largest Cistercian Monastery ruins in England, which were completely deserted.

The hotel was on a high point of Portland, so we had a great view. Over the following two days we explored the Jurassic Coast. We visited West Bay, which had impressive cliffs, we sought and found fossils on fossil beach, we did a walk around Lulworth Cove, visiting Fossil Forrest and we explored Corfe Castle.

Then we drove on to Bath, but we stopped at Glastonbury Abbey, and saw the site of King Arthur’s tomb (no, it was really him, I swear ;)). In Bath we stayed in a luxurious hotel, from where we took the bus into town. We visited Bath Abbey, the Royal Crescent, the Museum for East Asian Art and of course the Roman Baths.

The last stop on our trip was Oxford, where we stayed on the edge of town, and on the way we visited Stonehenge and Old Sarum. Oxford was a bit too busy for our liking (many many school kids from Italy, Spain and France), but the Bodleian Library was beautiful and so were the colleges. We went to the cinema twice (Harry Potter 6 and Ice Age 3) and visited many bookstores, of which Blackwell was the most impressive and my favourite. We also visited the University Museum of Natural History and the attached Pitt Rivers Museum.

All in all it were jam-packed days, but we had a great time, and for us it was a perfect trip. See the slideshow of pics below.

It is a Besta, and I filled it with shelves, drawers, and doors :D The top is two see through glass doors, with on the top shelves objects like mugs and keychains and such, and on the bottom shelves magazines and books. Below that are two smaller glass windows with pictures in them. Behind them are my folders of pictures, clippings and magazines on the one end, and my vinyl on the other end (records and singles). Below that are two sets of two drawers, with CD’s, DVD’s, bigger booklets (mostly concert souvenir booklets) and stuff I still need to put away in the correct place. Below that are two wooden doors, one has an empty shelve behind it, behind the other is a box with yet more magazines and my clothing (concert t-shirts etc.). I love having my collection all in one place (it used to be spread out over different locations through the house) and having a nice place for it where it won’t be damaged. Other advantages are that there is a lot more free space on our bookshelves and in the CD cabinet, we need that! :)

We have seen gingerbread houses on TV, in American movies and TV shows, but since it is a really American (or at least non-Dutch) tradition we had never seen one in real life, let alone made one. So, when I saw the kit in a cooking shop in The Hague in the days before Sinterklaas, I couldn’t resist, and bought the kit.

It was a lot of fun to make the house. The icing was sticky and messy, and it took great force to get it on the house, but it did work. The entire table, floor and H. were covered, but the result looks great. We have decided against actually eating the house (we don’t even know if we’re supposed to eat it) because the candies were not really edible (they nearly broke my teeth!) and the gingerbread smelled a bit like cardboard.

Even though Christmas was a while ago, the house now decorates our livingroom table, where it will stay for a little while :D

BTW, if you google Ganglion cyst, remember that with me it is a new one, small and not nearly as bad as all those horror pictures…