Torvehallerne

Saturday was a busy day. Nathan started it very early, together with Sam at Thomas' place, with champagne breakfast and some rugby on TV. The rest of us just chilled out and had a lazy morning start.

Then we all went to Torvehallerne for lunch. 

I had never been before, and it was truly an amazing experience! From now on I will always go here for lunch when I'm in the capital! It has lots of small restaurants and lots of possibilities to get tasty takeaways.

Torvehallerne is Copenhagen's new food temple. It opened in 2011 and consists of two market halls with over 60 stalls with fresh fruit, vegetables, fish, meat, cheese, bread and an array of Danish specialties. Torvehallerne has 60 000 visitors each week.

We all had something different for lunch, pulled duck sandwiches, fish and chips, prawn bulgur salad etc. It was super yummy and I loved just sitting there and watching all the hustle and bustle and people walking by.

Cracking the Toblerone piñata

The kids got to crack their big 2 kg win, didn't take long to get it open. So much chocolate!

Spiders

Auntie Nikki prepared a special treat for dessert for the kids tonight, a blast from the past - Spiders (or ice cream floats as they call it in other parts of the world). A new experience for our kids, but they lapped it all up!

Horsham delivered

We were so lucky arriving in the UK for some of the best summer weather they've had in ages, gorgeous, gorgeous sunshine, love it!
It wasn't the weekend though, so obviously life rolled on for the Keys even though we came by. Anna is a Child Minder now, so the kids she is looking after still came and Cameron and Maya still had school.
The kids and I took a stroll through town. In a way it's not until you leave a place you realize how pretty it is. Horsham really is a beautiful town.
As I've already mentioned, we hung out a bit with Griffin and his family both days.




We were also invited out to my friend Cecilia for dinner one night. Finally got to see their new house they bought a couple of years ago, and have spent all their time renovating since then. What an amazing home they've created! Oahhhh... total house envy!
Didn't bring the camera for some strange reason, only snapped this photo of the kids playing rugby down in the paddock.




Cameron was working hard on his last homework for the year; he had to make a 5 minute presentation about a favourite thing. He had chosen Manchester United, being the little football fan that he is. He did a trial run for us:




Thank you all our Horsham friends for turning on the good weather and looking after us so well!

Cravings

I'm spending half of our travel budget on these:







No, no on the kids per se (even if that is more than true as well) - on berries.
English summer berries is seriously one of my biggest cravings. I long for them all year, the blueberries, strawberries, cherries - but most of all the raspberries. The English raspberries are so big and juicy, and I eat a punnet or two most days. Mmm!

A Horsham surprise

The kids and I left Brunei a couple of days before Nathan this time. The flights were getting so full later in the week and we didn't want to risk getting bumped.
Instead we took the opportunity to go see our friends down in Horsham again. I really do enjoy coming back to Horsham every summer - we are so lucky we still have friends there, and that we are always welcome to come and stay.

On the way down in the taxi, Lucas asked me if we were going to see Griffin this time, his friend from his UK nursery. I said "no probably not, since I haven't been in touch with his mummy for a very long time".

Well, guess our surprise when already on the first afternoon, while we walked around town doing a spot of power shopping, we bumped into the Els family in a shoe shop! What a coincidence!
Even a bigger coincidence when I tell you - they don't even live in the UK anymore, they'd moved down to South Africa and was only in Horsham on holiday! What are the odds!??

We went for coffee and a catch up, and the kids went off playing in the glorious sunshine, and in the water sprinkles... they had a great time!

We decided to meet up again the second day, bought some picnic and went to the playground for the afternoon. It was really lovely to reconnect again!

What a bonus!

At least there was something good with having to stay over at Heathrow this time - we got to see Granddad!

Bruce was operating up from Mumbai on Friday, scheduled to arrive just in time for dinner. We kept a close eye on his flight on the iPads, and we think we spotted him through the window when he landed:


Then we had to wait for him to arrive. Very cleverly his cabin crew was actually staying in our hotel so he could catch their bus and come straight to us!

We had a quick dinner together in the hotel, the kids got lovely Indian gifts and told Granddad everything about what's been going on lately.


Although, they withered quickly, and soon Linnea was asleep at the table and Lucas under it... Still slightly jet lagged...

Long layover

The kids and I are in the UK. We are on a 48 hour (plus...) unplanned layover. We were actually not supposed to leave Brunei until tonight, then fly straight on to Sweden tomorrow, Saturday. But the RBA flights near the end of this week all looked so full, so we didn't want to gamble and risk not getting on - so we left Wednesday night.

Changing the tickets to Sweden was going to be ridiculously expensive (close to £1000!), so we have ended up spending two and a half days in a hotel. That is about two days too much...

We don't have any winter clothes really with us, so we have to stay in the hotel, literally. Lucky we have iPads!

Seasoned travellers

Nathan was worried that traveling through Heathrow the same week as the Olympics started was going to mean total chaos, so we set off from Horsham real early and arrived at the airport more than three hours before our flight. As it turns out, there was no chaos at all, actually it all went super smoothly and we now had far too much time to kill.
So, we spent a fair bit of that time in the shops, browsing. The Olympics 2012 Souvenir shop was quite fun:


We even had time to get dinner, and go to the pub (!) before it was time to go to gate. The kids were very cute, holding hands as they walked along, a rare sight!





I'm grateful traveling this time was non-eventful, made for a nice change! Nathan is unfortunately going back through Heathrow again around the end of the Olympics, hopefully it's be just as smooth then.

A perfect summers day

On Sunday the summer truly came to Horsham. It was sunny blue skies and super hot - time for a picnic! We brought the picnic blankets and packed the backpacks full of yummy treats, brought the football and walked up through town to the park.








It was absolutely stunning weather, and the park was full of happy people having got the same idea as us.


Berries, my favourite treat. I lost count how many boxes of raspberries, blueberries and blackberries I enjoyed while in the UK... Mmmmm!





The kids played in the playground, went to the skate park, played football on the big field...


... and also took part in some volleyball games. Lucas is in a long sleeved orange top and military green shorts:








Linnea too made some new friends. All the kids had a lovely day, and so did us parents on the picnic blanket in the sun!

Holmbush Farm

On our second day in Horsham, we visited an old haunt of ours, the Holmbush Farm. It's a big playground/farm just outside Horsham where we used to go a lot when we lived there. The kids still loved it and had an absolute ball.
They have huge climbing frames and lots of exciting things to explore, a barn full of farm animals friendly enough to pet, a hay bale maze, a tractor ride, tractor ride-ons and much more.
We spent mostly morning and most of the afternoon there - in the glorious weather!