Merry Christmas to you!

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas! Here some Instagram photos of my last few days! I'm celebrating the holidays with my family in The Netherlands but we also made a quick overnight trip across the border to Germany to browse around the Christmas markets in Münster.

Enjoying the Weinachtsmarkt in Germany. Lights everywhere, glühwein, lebkuchen and bratwurst!

I baked a traditional Dutch Christmas bundt cake! Christmas tree bauble, feeling festive in my reindeer socks and Christmas crackers for the table decorations.

Preparing Christmas dinner; we have some vegetarians in my family so this year it's Jamie Olivers cranberry & pistachio nut roast as one of the many courses for our Christmas day feast. Last night we went to the Christmas midnight mass and today I did even more baking; the most delicious gooey chocolate crinkle salted caramel cookies ever... (recipe to follow!)

A quick run at the beach earlier today and now I am relaxing, eating and drinking with family...

I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas with family and loved ones! Xoxo

 

Mint winters day OOTD & new cross bracelet

For those of you who follow me on Twitter or Instagram, you would have already seen my picture post of two bargains I picked up in the H&M sale last week. I was quickly popping into my local store buy some socks (of all necessities) and got distracted by the sales racks where I found this lovely cropped mint knitted jumper for only £15! Even though it's now winter and you might see mint as more of a spring colour I see no reason why to shy away from brightening my winter days with colourful outfits. This is me in my new jumper on Sunday, where I combined the mint jumper with my favourite bright pink winter wooly snood scarf.

Do you like this colourful look for winter?

To keep warm I paired it with my super snug tan UGG boots!

I have also been meaning to show you this new fine side cross bracelet that I got from ASOS a few weeks back. It is from their ASOS collection and you can get it in silver, gold and rose gold. It looks more gold in this photo but mine is the rose gold one.

Get it here for only £6 (link)

I was back home (yet again!) this weekend to celebrate St Nicolas with my family. It is my favourite Dutch tradition because it is an evening full of laughs, presents and the most yummy St Nicolas treats!

I definitely indulged in a fair amount of Speculaas this weekend....

Dutch Speculaas Chunks - you can find my recipe here (link). The gym is definitely calling my name this week after my indulgent but fun family weekend but hell it was worth it ;)

Focus...

That time of the week again! 

I feel it is very important to keep a healthy sense of perspective in life and keep focussed on the good :)

Also as you know I was at home in the Netherland last weekend so here a quick collection of pictures:

Attending my sisters PhD ceremony - feeling very proud of her for this amazing achievement! 

When at home I can never resist a delicious piece of traditional Dutch apple pie

Comfy and casual outfit of the day; distressed jeans, leather converse high tops, leopard print scarf

Strolling around the picturesque town of Delft - check out the lean on the church tower ;)

Yes it's that time of the year again; indulging in Oliebollen! 

Showing my friend around Delft

We spotted several 'horse parking spots' for St Nicolas shopping loading zone haha

 My hometown, beautiful The Hague!

Parliament building and Grote Markt square at night

On Saturday we made a little day trip to Amsterdam where we biked around, caught up with friends and walked around the rainy, but still very pretty, canals. Lunch was a grilled goats cheese sandwich with walnuts and honey at Cafe Nielsen in the Nine Little Streets area of Amsterdam (which has lovely boutiques and restaurants). Dinner and a couple of glasses of red were consumed at Boca's in the Jordaan; a fun casual platter restaurant/bar.

On Sunday I took my friend for a walk along the beach but we experienced some crazy winds that day; we almost struggled to move! After being completely blown away on the beach we warmed up again over hot chocolates and poffertjes.....yummmmm!

Ps: If you fancy being friends on Instagram, you can follow me at Dutchessroz

Happy Hump Day everyone :) 

Sunrise run at my Zen place!

I'm back home in the Netherlands at the moment for a long weekend for a family occasion. One thing I always try to do when at my parents place is to go for a walk or run at the beach. My parents live in The Hague, just behind the dunes by the sea so it's only a 5 minute walk from home to one of my favourite places in the world. In general I'm definitely a person that loves being near water but the beach by my parents house is truly my personal 'zen' place! I don't know what it is but going for a walk there along the coast, feeling the wind against my skin, hearing the sound of the waves rolling in..it always puts my mind at ease and I feel in total peace. I always have the best and most honest conversations there with people and it's the one place where my mind can just roam free and I always feel better and happier once I've been there! So after arriving home on Wednesday night the first thing on my agenda for Thursday was a sunrise run on the beach..and I was lucky because it was a stunner of a day! It was a bit chilly but so worth it, just look at this..

I am currently trying to increase my running training because I actually signed up to do my first 1/2 marathon in March, eeek! Recently my knees started playing up a little so I decided to invest in some new running shoes. They say you should get new ones every year but I admit I'd had mine for almost 2,5 years. Whoops!

I got these new Asics sneakers (link) and I have really noticed a difference so bring on those 21km I say ;)

A no make up, just out of bed shot of me during my run. I always need music when I am running to keep me going and energised!

Such a beautiful sunrise! I took this photo with my iPhone; no filter!

This is the sun shining through the trees in the dunes on my way back after my refreshing and super peaceful run. I felt tired, but satisfied and happy! I mean how can an amazing place like this not bring a smile to my face :)

Do you have a location that is your 'zen' or happy place? Xoxo

 

Family time at the beach

Earlier this month I was back home for a weekend in the Netherlands for a family reunion. Here a photo of my outfit that day, wearing my favourite mint jeans!

Mint jeans from Warehouse (as seen here)

New grey t-shirt from ASOS (buy here)

Black jersey blazer from ZARA

Necklace: Antique key from Paris on a chain with an old dutch coin.

The beach is one of my favourite places at home, so a walk along the sea was a necessity for my visit :)

Some family snap shots

 A walk along the windy beach at home always does me a world good...

Plus here another quick picture of an outfit from that weekend...

I got this top when I was in Paris. I can never resist buying something stripey and I loved the red/white combo plus the pink detailing on the sleeves and bottom of the top!

Queens day Amsterdam..ridiculously amazing!

It's that time of the week already....Happy Hump Day!!

Queens Day 2012 in Amsterdam was....well......ridiculously amazing!! There's no other way to describe it. As promised here some pictures of this awesome day filled with friends, music, sunshine and music. We got so lucky with the weather because it rained before and after Queens Day but on the day itself we were blessed with blue skies and 23 degrees, unbelievable!

Warning these images contain a lot of.....ORANGE!!!! ;)

I had the best day and have some amazing memories that will stay with me forever ♥

 

People always ask me lots questions about the Netherlands so I thought I’d give you all some (fun) interesting facts about my home country!

♥ "the Netherlands" and "Holland" are used to describe the same country!
♥ Why do Dutchies like orange so much? It's the name of our royal family the "House of Orange".
♥ The Dutch are the tallest people in the world. Men average at 1.84m and women at 1.7m. I am 1.74m tall so just above average for a Dutch girl :)
♥ The Netherlands has the highest population density (493 inhabitants per square km - water included) of any European country with over 1 million inhabitants.
♥ The Netherlands means 'Low Country' in Dutch. About half of its surface area is less than 1 meter above sea level and one quarter of the Netherlands is actually below sea level. When your plane arrives at Schiphol Airport, it lands 4.5 metres below sea level
♥ A large part of Holland has been reclaimed including the world’s largest man-made island Flevoland. This led to the Dutch saying "God created the world, but the Dutch created the Netherlands".
♥ With only 0.008% of the world’s area, the Netherlands is the world’s third largest agricultural exporter
♥ The Netherlands highest point is 323 metres high and is therefore called a ‘mountain’!
♥ The Dutch are the next biggest coffee drinkers – after the Scandinavians
♥ There are people from 200 different nationalities living in Amsterdam
♥ Amsterdam has 1,281 bridges.
♥ Because Amsterdam's soil consists of a thick layer of fen and clay, all buildings are built on wooden poles that are fixed in a sandy layer that is 11 meters deep on average. The Royal Palace at Dam Square is built on no less than 13,659 wooden poles.
♥ The Netherlands has nearly 1,000 museums, with 42 in Amsterdam alone and you can see 22 paintings by Rembrandt and 206 by van Gogh in Amsterdam.
♥ Almost every person in the Netherlands has a bicycle (over 16 million bikes!) and there are twice as many bikes as cars
♥ The Netherlands has at least 15,000km of cycle tracks
♥ the Netherlands still has about 1,000 traditional working windmills
♥ The Dutch love flowers; you’ll find a bunch of flowers in almost every living room!
 

Note the 30th April in your diary because it's our Queen's Birthday and the best party day ever! You won't want to miss it next year! I will be there again that's for sure :) xoxo

My love of quotes...

I have been a huge fan of quotes and sayings ever since I can remember. I love how quotes can capture a thought or feeling so perfectly, that I completely identify with it or can look to them as an inspiration to lead my life. I am one of those people that if I read or see a quote that I like; I will write it down, save it or take a photo of it - just to ensure I don’t forget it. People always ask me, where do you get all your ‘Happy Hump Day’ images and quotes from? Well they pretty much just come from my continually growing collection that I have assembled over time and then on Hump Day I look for one that fits my mood or feelings at the time.

This last weekend I went home to the Netherlands for one of my very best friends’ Bachelorette party. She is marrying her lovely American fiancé in September this year and as much as I am extremely happy for her, the downside for me is that this means she will be moving to the USA in 5 weeks’ time. When my friend (Lulu) and I met we were both 17 years old, starting the same university degree in Utrecht. We always laugh and say ‘You had me at Hello’ (as famously said by Tom Cruise in Jerry Maguire) because we just clicked instantly and have had a strong friendship for the last 10 years, even though we lived worlds apart with me in NZ and her in Europe.

We both shared a love for quotes and so at 17 we decided to create our own ‘religion/way to life your life’ calling it Lulu-dism which was made up of a list of amendments out of our favourite quotes. We typed it up and took it to a photocopy place to get two big (ugly) posters printed that we each hung in our rooms to remind us and support us through life in good and bad times. Over the years we each sadly lost these posters but when I was packing up my life in New Zealand I all of a sudden found this list of quotes!!! For Lulu’s leaving gift I wanted to give her something really special that summed up our friendship and bond that we will hopefully have for the rest of our lives (no matter where we live) so I decided to get a brand spanking new poster made of our Lulu-dism quotes that she could hang in her new house in America. I wanted it to look amazing and tried my hand at designing something but being the perfectionist that I am, I just felt it needed to look more professional. So to help me I got in touch with a friend of mine who does graphic design and she created this amazing poster for me!


I seriously love the end result and so did Lulu I think because when I gave it to her this weekend…well let’s just say it produced a lot of tears! It’s hard for me to pick a favourite on this poster because I just LOVE all these quotes ♥ I am definitely going to get one printed and framed for my house too :)

For more awesome posters check out my friends Etsy Shop where she sells prints and personalised poster gifts. If you spot something you fancy then she’s offering my lovely readers FREE (UK only) shipping! All you need to do is enter the coupon code DUTCHESS01 when checking out.

Here also two pictures of the fun-filled Bachelorette Party weekend in Amsterdam.
Quite the contrast between the two haha!
A FAB Burlesque Work Shop at Paleis van de Weemoed in Amsterdam.

What happens in the Red Light District, stays in the Red Light District ;)

....and a hilarious Group photo shoot in Dutch Traditional Costume in Volendam.
Most Dutch people would not actually do anything like this (more touristy thing to do) but what amazing memorabilia to have!

Definitely had a fantastic weekend and will cherish these memories for ever....
'A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart and can sing it back to you, when you have forgotten the words' Happy Hump Day!! xoxo

Home sweet home %

That time of the week again!

Happy Hump Day :)

Here are some quick pictures of me enjoying the little things in life during a visit home at the end of August.

♥ Hanging out with the parents in Utrecht
♥ Messing around at the beach on a cold and windy summers (?!?) day
♥ Antique shopping in The Hague
♥ Visiting the fortressed town of Naarden

♥ Two blondies by a canal

♥ One of my favourite drinks, fresh mint tea!

♥ and, finally, the obligatory jumping shot haha ;)

Also am addicted to this song at the moment: Gym Class Hereos ft Adam Levine - Stereo Hearts! xoxo