Hallo Berlin

 The weather was glorious & cafe culture thrives

 As do the street markets

 That are so posh in Prenzlauer Berg they have a champagne wagon!

 I would have loved to go inside this shop but the others were marching on ahead, but I will return at Christmas to have a look as we are staying not far away.

 But the best part of this break was the day we went to Potsdam on our rented bikes, well. it would have been had Emin not thrown every single toy out of his pram, leaving me with Leyla again, this was not easy as instead of sandwiching her between us I had to turn and look to see if she was OK all the time. The parks were lovely and both Potsdam and Berlin were a joy to cycle around

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The whole holiday for me was marred by Emin's astonishingly selfish behaviour that was reminiscent of our very first holiday with Leyla, when as a small baby I found myself constantly left alone with her whilst he slept.

You may wonder why we are choosing to spend time together in retirement, but as always once you remove the source of all conflict then we get along just fine, so 7 more years and we should be good to go!!

We need to talk about Amsterdam

 Where have I been? Well after a week long break I returned to shed loads of moderation, meetings and college work. All of this is still going on and will do so for the next two weeks, but I need timeout so have returned to post some photographs of Amsterdam.
My memories of this city were golden, but that was 25 years ago and time has taken its toll on this once beautiful city. The city remains beautiful of course, but the heaving tourists flocking to ogle the hard core window porn and smoke various illegal or otherwise substances have tainted the view.
I was even more conscious of all this with an 11 year old in tow, but despite grown men on their hands and knee's throwing up in our path we managed to find some of the quieter places to walk.
And therein lay another problem, it rained and rained and the wind blew a bitterly cold gale. Emin was ill shod and kept wandering off by himself, leaving me to deal with Leyla. We queued for hours to shelter in the Van Gogh Museum which was lovely but full to the brim. I saw my most favourite Van Gogh painting, and realised it was probably the last one he painted before he died, and I just wanted to cry.

 But despite this the view across the canals remains a delight, as does the ability to gaze longingly inside those huge windows, coveting those amazing rooms they live in.

 Bicycles were not always welcome, but we did rent some the one day it stopped raining and cycled out of town.

 Gorgeous views.

 amazing windows

 interiors to covet

 This birds nest was a work of art.

 Far from the madding crowd was this haven of tranquillity

 ...and delicious food at Momo.

All so we could escape this, which was a shame as London is looking very festive and despite the whole city trying to complete 10 years worth of repairs and renovations for our big day it was good to get home.