Wednesday March 1st –
We decided to go exploring for a little bit after we finished our morning coffee and mango.
There was a restaurant that had been catching Mike and my eye in Velp but we had yet to try it so Mom and I planned to end up there after some other walking and shop browsing.
Velp is about a 15 minute walk from the apartment and the sun was actually shining so that was a nice bonus ☀️
We meandered down a few streets, into a couple of shops and then to the little restaurant called ‘La Maison Du Velp ‘ we went.
It’s a tad daunting entering a busy little place, seeing no type of sign about seating and not knowing if anyone is telling you what to do or not because it would be said in Dutch 🙈
We seen a waiter and asked if we should sit wherever and he said yes so we chose for the less crowded, upstairs.
Overlooking the diners below, we started off with drinks and I began the task of menu translating since they didn’t have any English ones 😬
Anything fishy (literally) was easily spotted and knocked off the choosing list.
After that it got a tad trickier but enough hopefully accurate guessing and narrowing down left us with two choices.
Honey chicken served with bacon and pine nuts on bread and a cheese, tomato pesto grilled sandwich.
Both were tasty and the experience a fun one😊
We left there in search of a supposed second hand store, finding it, and nothing but a bad smell inside 😜
We took some side streets back towards the apartment and for some reason mother wanted to walk the eight floors of stairs up 🙄😏
My legs rebelled at the idea, sore from the previous days first bit of exercise in months, but they were soon able to rest again once we were back in comfy clothes, couch bound to blog/write/paint etc. 😁
I accidentally fell asleep on purpose and then set to preparing supper immediately after awaking.
Chicken pot pie filling had been taken out of the freezer earlier that day so I heated pastry shells and threw together a small salad to accompany it.
Mike didn’t return from Germany until later that evening and he came bearing gifts 😄
A small cake for mom (not exactly sure why) and a sprinkle donut for me 😄
Some pasta I’ve enjoyed at a restaurant and also fresh gnocchi, which we already had two bags of in the cupboard but whatever 💁🏻
Can’t say he didn’t think of us 😉
Plans were semi made for the next day and alarms set 😴
Thursday March 2nd –
Mumsie made us eggs and toasted some cheese croissants for a nummy little breakfast and then we all had to get ready to leave the apartment.
We’d been planning on walking around Doesburg while Mike took care of some car things but the once again, awful winds were making walking outside look pretty un-enjoyable.
Plans were changed and it was decided Mom and I would spend our time exploring ‘Intratuin‘ instead.
A large garden/decor centre.
Plants were viewed in awe… a baby pineapple bought by me 🙈💕🍍
We walked through the large store, taking our time exploring it all and we came across something I’d been searching for since around December!
Paper, but not paper, canvas like little bags!
How Mike and I hunted for them…
Store to store, asking many an employee and google searching but coming up empty handed.
Now, one glance to the right walking down an isle in Intratuin and there they were.
Bags of bags.
They may not be the most amazing thing, but it’s one of those things you get stuck in your head that should have technically been easy to find and wasn’t, so it haunts you 😏
But no more!
We finished up in the garden part of the store and went upstairs to find our way through ‘Woon Dock‘, a large store combining home wares from multiple vendors.
Many a nice thing was spotted and admired but only so much fits in a suitcase/moving trunk 😏
We found one thing that would fit though 😁
A perfect old letterpress drawer which I’ve been keeping an eye out for to make into a table display for my sea shells ❤👌🏻🐚
Really, it probably deserved its own Jem Moment.
We were getting hungry so when we turned the corner into the cafe area, we decided to stay there awhile.
Before we could order anything though, a friendly older man set up selling different types of smoked meat offered us a sample.
We both tried different types of deer and we looked at each other with very pleased expressions after one bite 😋
It was tender and flavourful and with mixed Dutch and English, I figured out what was what and how much we wanted 😏👌🏻🍖
THEN we sat down to munch on a Hawaiian panini and sip a Carmelo.
Both were lacking but the soft couches felt good to rest on for a while 😊
Mike arrived just as we finished that store and we headed back to the apartment, having to pause at the grocery store to pick up some items forgotten the previous day.
Once at the apartment our (mostly my 😬) purchases were shown off and then found homes for.
(The ‘to be shell shelf’, JUST fitting in our one moving trunk 😬)
Since Mike had doubled up on the gnocchi we had in the house, we invited John and Inge to join us in its consumption 🍽🍹
Thanks to Bluebirds And Lemon Drops recipe, the gnocchi turned out deliciously and I don’t know if I’ll ever boil gnocchi to cook it again!
We visited away a bit of our evening and the remainder was spent sitting quietly upon the couch.
All a tad tired from the days events and not even one nap taken.
Till Mom fell asleep pre bedtime and wrecked our all of one day, no nap record 😋
(In explanation of the title (if it needs it), those are questions we find ourselves asking daily here.
Whether it’s because Mom and Mike don’t understand what the other is trying to say or if it’s trying to figure out a mixture of Dutch and English that will get an item bought etc. 😋)
Jemstory 