Sesuci Salju 2

More snow pictures - continuation from last entry.

When DS was bored and tired of playing alone, we went back to the house. He did manage to find 2 Dutch boys to play with, but then the boys were too conscious of me to really enjoy themselves that we decided to head back. We took a little detour and managed to get a few more pictures.
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The house looks familiar? It's the same one on the side bar.

Dutch kids skating in the canal

By this time DS was getting restless, wanting to go home since he was bored and bored. He was missing his friends because they couldn't come due to train cancellations.

The sullen boy. . . 

We went home, but not before I took pictures of the other side of the bridge. . .
 


Swans and ducks normally swim in this part of the canal

Where I normally buy fresh eggs. . .  not at the big house, but by the gate :D

Had DS been more cooperative, I'm sure I would be able to take more beautiful scenes on the other side. I suppose I couldn't blame him, there's no one to play snow fight with, I certainly didn't want . . .  was more interested in taking pictures :D

Snow fighting alone. . .

Under the bridge

Alhamdulillah. . . . dapat juga main salji tahun ni  :D

Sesuci Salju

I feel so embarrassed with my self. Here I was eagerly wishing to update the blog as frequent as I could and yet what happened??? My promise to upload the snow scenes have gone stale !!! Somehow things got in the way. . .  Ohhh I do so admire those who manage to update their blogs daily, they must be good in time management. I'm sure everybody is busy in our own ways, so it's a matter of controlling and managing our time.

Last week, we went to a place that I had been wanting to go for quite sometime, but only manage to locate the place in the last few days. The place is idyllic, it's so beautiful even with the still barren trees. I was so excited to upload the photos here in the blog and found to my dismay that, I have yet to upload the snow pictures!!!

So here is the stale snow photos. . . I will upload them anyway :D

Just outside my house

All the pictures were taken on Saturday morning 4th February. As I mentioned in my earlier post, heavy snow had come down on Friday morning around 11 am or so. By 12.30 am, only light snow were still falling. When I checked, it was only about 10 cm thick, hmmm not that heavy compared to last year and the year before. By late Friday afternoon, all the snow on the trees had fallen to the ground. A pity. . .  it's the sight of snow on the trees that makes it beautiful.

That night, temperature had gone down to -15 Celsius (when I checked), but I was told it was even colder than -20C in some areas. This might be normal in Scandinavian countries, but not in The Netherlands. Average winter temperature (as stated in the tourist guide book) is actually 5 C. Netherlands had not seem much snow in the last decades. . . but since we have been here, we have seen lots of beautiful snow scenarios in the last three winters, Alhamdulillah :D

Winter 2009/2010 recorded the heaviest snowfall in almost 20 years. All my dutch neighbours came out and not only us, but they too took pictures of the scene. So we were not the only ones getting excited and oooing here and ooohaahhh there !!!

Winter 2010/2011, we already move to The Hague. Snow came early, in late November it already started snowing. That year they had white Christmas, the Dutch must be excited, it's not every year they have snow and even more rare to get white Christmas. You can read about it and browse the pictures here.

This year winter 2011/2012, even though snow came once and not that heavy for that matter, we were glad because we managed to capture the precious moments (in my opinion :D)

That Saturday morning, when I looked out the window, all I saw was mist and the black outlines of the trees. I was sure there were no fresh snow in the night (because our footsteps of yesterday's were not covered by new snow). But when the sun started to shine, and the mist had cleared, I saw that the trees in front of the kitchen window were all white. . . How come???

Scenes outside the kitchen window. . .

A talk with a neighbour later in the day revealed that the mist had frozen on the trees because of the low temperature. Hmmm interesting idea, I'm not going to argue about that but I think she might be right in her theory.

White snow against blue sky. . .

Behind the house. . . the building in the picture is kinder boerderij (kids farm)

The big tree is all white

I managed to coerce DS to come out and took a walk in the neighbourhood . . . . 

My nextdoor neighbour - House no 3

Neighbour - house no 2

Love these 2 trees. . .

The main gate and bridge to the houses


We took a walk along the bicycle path to school. I would prefer to continue on the road and took pictures of the neighbours' houses, but DS was more interested in sleghing on the frozen canal. So we continued walking along the school route.

View of the frozen canal from the bridge

Upclose

In early spring, the compound is full of snow drops, now it's all white. .

The distance to nearby towns by bike

Normally you would be able to see a few sheeps grazing here on this compound. . .  too cold to come out I suppose :D

This area with the walking and cycling paths (next to it, but higher - where people are seen walking in the picture) are still newly developed, so the trees are still small. We had to stop here because DS wanted to snow sledding...

Down into the frozen canal . . .

Have to stop now, hope you enjoy watching the pictures as much as I did enjoy the scenarios. The camera didn't do the scenes justice, it was much more beautiful in real life. . . .

Brrrrrrr Sejukkk !!!

Brrrrr. . .  really, it must be the coldest February ever!!! -9 celcius at the moment with a promise of flurries again. Hopefully the flurries will turn out to be real snow again :D  Last week on Friday, the supposed flurries turned out to be heavy snow I was informed. I was not aware of the heavy snow, I was actually so engrossed in writing my last entry of "Aku Nikahkan DiKau", I didn't know it was snowing!!! By the time I realised it, only light snow still falling. Oh!! I love watching snow fall, the pure white snow crystal somehow gives me warm feeling.

By Saturday night, temperature had gone down to -15 celcius, so glad we were inside, blissfully warm in the comfort of our quilt. And so glad that it was Saturday night and there's no school tomorrow and there's no need to brace the cold, hoorayy !!!

When morning came, the view outside the house was transformed. . . it was so beautifully white, it was magical.

Around our house - on the way to school

By the time I managed to coax DS to come out, it was 11.30 a.m. Luckily the snow still sticked to the trees, a few hours later it would have been blown to the ground by the wind. There were not much snow, only about 10 cm but it was so dry and fine snow. Because of the extreme slightly colder weather (by Holland's standard), snow on the ground still exist and still crisp until today.

Isn't the snow view awsome?? I will try to upload more photos later.

Salji Yang Ciput

Inilah salji yang pertama kali turun untuk musim sejuk kali ni. Tak tahulah pulak kalau salji ada turun masa ketiadaan kami di Holland selama seminggu hujung tahun 2011 yang lalu. Tapi rasanya tak ade.. .

Alamakkk ciputnya salji. . .

Malam tadi DS duk berharap biarla turun banyak sikit, tak sabar nak main salji ni. Tapi memang mama DS tak berharap sangat sebab dah tengok ramalan yang katanya "light snow". Betullah ramalan tu. . . . sikit sangat. Dalam hari-hari yang akan datang pula, cuaca memang sejuk -5 tapi matahari bersinar ceria pulak, jadi macam mana nak ada salji ? Sedih juga tak dapat nak merasa salji kali ni. Rasa-rasanya tak ada lagi salji dalam bulan Februari ni.

Salji dicelah-celah anak tulip

Takpelah. . . . nak buat cam mana kan :(  Jom kita layan roti yang di buat bila ye? Oh ya. . . rasanya minggu lepas. Inilah dia "Cinnamon Pull Apart Bread"

Hingga terkeluar dari baking dish tu hehehe

Kali pertama buat, sedap. . . DS dan DH siap bawa bekal lagi hehehehe. . . . Resepinya diambil dari blog Dapurku Sayang . Memang resepi-resepi dalam blog Dayang Jack ni nampak sedap-sedap belaka. Seperti biasa IA cuma letak je dalam bread maker tu. Bila doh dah naik 2 kali ganda (timer BM tu 1 1/2 jam) IA ambil dan letak dalam peti sejuk (tutup dohnya) dan keesokan paginya baru dikeluarkan. Kalau nak terus dicanai pun tak ada masaalah.

 

Rupanya doh tu naik lagi walaupun di letak dalam peti sejuk hingga melekat di aluminim foil yang diguna untuk tutup bekas tu.

Canaikan doh dan sapukan melted butter dan tabur campuran gula perang dan cinnamon (IA tak ada gula perang, jadi guna gula halus saja). Potong doh tu dan susun dalam bekas. Lebihan butter tadi disapu di atas roti dan tabur lagi gula. Sementara proses ni nak siap, doh tu sempat naik lagi, doh yang tadi dicanai agak nipis sekarang dah jadi agak tebal

Bakar selama 20-30 minit dalam oven 350 F (IA letak 175 C). Bila dibakar, tentulah doh tu naik lagi kan, hingga terkeluar dari baking dish tu hehehehe. . .

Cubalah, kalau tengok roti Dayang Jack buat, memang nampak sedap.

Resipi : Cinnamon Pull Apart Bread

2 3/4 cawan + 2 tbs tepung
1/4 cawan gula kasar
2 1/4 tsp yis
1/2 tsp garam
4 tbs butter (IA guna 60 g)
1/3 cawan susu penuh krim (IA guna susu segar)
1/4 cawan air
2 telur saiz A
1 tsp vanila

Cara :

• Susu dan butter dipanaskan hingga butter cair. Ketepikan hingga suam2 kuku, baru dimasukkan  dalam BM
• Proses yang lain adalah sama seperti kaedah BM yang lain iaitu masukkan bahan2 cecair dahulu, diikuti oleh bahan kering.

Mood M****

Hari ni buat kerja semua tak menjadi.... kenapa entah. Tadi dapat "message" dari kawan yang dah lama tak berhubung, bukan main seronok lagi...sibuk la taip jawapan. Tapi apa pulak yang tak kena... jawapan tu hilang pulakkk, taip pula panjang lebar untuk kedua kalinya... pun hilang juga.. aaikk biar betul!!! Akhirnya, terbengkalai la "message" tu, akan dicuba pula esok harinya. Baju dalam mesin basuh pun belum disidai, rasanya bunyi bising gedegum gedegam mesin tu dah lama senyappp....

Hmmm nak pergi kedai pun m****, padahal nak kena pergi cari roti.... sebab esok anakku nak bawa apa ke sekolah? Patutnya pergi ke kedai semalam, tapi dek penangan kem****an, ditunda kehari ni, pagi tadi anakku bawa pizza segera ke sekolah untuk makan tengahari, nasib baik masih ada sekeping lagi. Buah kegemaran dia pun dah habis... ganti ngan biskut oreo 4 keping untuk makan masa rehat.. Ahhh cukup la banyak tu :D

Lepas tu cuba pulak buat entri kat blog ni... tulis sikit buntu.... tukar topik lain pula.... pun sama juga, buat lagi "draft" yang baru, isu ketiga dah ni.. pun tak jadi juga. Hai.... otak pun m**** juga ke????

Jadi.... layan je gambar-gambar mentari jatuh yang tak berapa cantik nih... Ingatkan boleh dapat gambar yang cun masa ambil hari tuh... tapi kurang pula menariknya bila letak kat komputer. Seperti biasala, kamera cap ayam he....he.... sebab tu gambar tak cantik, bukan salah jurugambar ya..... Apapun tengok je la :D

Moonlighting, Lollies and Stalactites

I can't believe it!! It's so sunny today and the temperature is currently 11 celcius !! What happens to winter ? Not that I'm complaining... it's just that it's so unpredictable !! We have been looking forward to more snow so that we could play snow sledding (we just found the perfect place for it recently after the snow has already melted). We are also hoping that the canals will be frozen so that dear son could try his luck in ice skating :D

*sigh* I suppose I will just have to show these winter photos before the crocus and tulips decide to show their buds in January he..he.. These were all taken between 18 - 20 December.

I love the sight of these lights topped with the fresh snow. Quickly grabbed my camera and went out in the cold to snap them before the snow started to melt.

Double moonlighting..

Ice cream lollies...

Stalactites..

My bird house..

My rubbish bins...