Another weekend

Didn't have any huge plans for the Saturday, but after a little time on line, Gabe found a place in Enschede that had some used sewing machines for sale.
Off we went.
Foolishly I didn't take the camera, since there was at least one area where Black Pete was making a visit and the kids were in full war paint.
For some reason if you're going to visit Black Pete, you need to blacken your face as well. (hey, just reporting what I saw)

Along with the appearance of Black Pete, we did get a glimpse of Sinterklaas, as he came down one of the streets to see the kids.

(man I wish I could do these hyperlinks without my cheat sheet, but even when I'm very careful, it doesn't always work)

Like I say....should have taken the camera, but our mission was to pick up a sewing machine and possibly a serger.
I should say that, even though we had shipped Gabe's sewing equipment over, we didn't feel we wanted to take the risk of running them with a converter, since the sewing machine is a little sophisticated, and when plugged in, made a sound that didn't make either of us feel all that comfortable.
Turns out, we ended up buying both a sewing machine and a serger (used) and Gabe is doing her best to figure out the sewing machine.
She's referring to the manual.
It's in Dutch of course.


She wasn't really all too happy that I took her pic at the controls since, at that particular moment, things were not going well. The upper thread was just in the wrong place, and I'm pretty sure all is well at this point. (I haven't heard any banging, crashing or any hint of a temper flaring....
oh wait, that would be me)

When we got home with out booty, we dutifully got on our bikes and went in to Delden to finish the grocery shopping. We had already bought some cheese in Enschede, but needed the usual stuff.

See, we're learning.

Anyhoo, even though the sun is out right at this moment we went out earlier today for our now usual Sunday bike ride.
Figured we'd go down by the canal for a ways.

Didn't see a lot of people out, since it's a road that is only open to people who live there, unless you're on bike, and then you can go anywhere you like. I like that system.

There were a few rowers and, although I didn't get this in the picture, some of them were being coached from the shore. Again, the coaches were on bike since, if the cops stop you in your car and you can't prove you live there....you get a fine.



It was actually perfect weather for bike riding, since there's no chance of getting over heated.
You'll notice there are some mittens involved.

That overpass (or as the Brits call it...."flyover") that you see down there in the distance is the A35, and that was our turning around point. We can now say we finally rode to Hengelo, since that's the edge of town.


It's rather peaceful along the canal, with only the rowers, the odd jogger and the domestic animals.

Other than that the only other excitement was to go out and vacuum out the car, since we had messed it up a bit on the last trip.

Rivetting stuff.