1 February
Our Australia-Waitangi Day celebration on Saturday 1 February was a great success with old friends and new. Held at the Residence of the NZ Ambassador, we began with real Aussie pies, mash, peas and gravy followed by a great selection of Aussie and Kiwi desserts. There were pavs and lamingtons, ginger crunch and even a snickers cheesecake! Helen prepared an Aussie/Kiwi quiz to test us. It was great fun and quite a lot of us didn’t do too well… Everyone had a wonderful time.
11 January, Schiedam
What a wonderful start to the new year! A group of us visited the quaint town of Schiedam, famous for their jenever (gin), sold all over the world. We started at the museum’s windmill for a coffee and a climb, which gave a beautiful view over the town from the windmill balcony. Our English speaking guide gave an elaborate tour of the museum and told us much about the genever industry and its history.
One of the things we learned was that the export of jenever to Australia and New Zealand started relatively late, the jenever export began to flourish after the British had started to establish themselves in Aus and NZ in the second half of the 19th century. A fun fact is that labels of jenever bottles found in New Zealand show that a former pharmacy there sold jenever as a medicine, allegedly someone had been cured of their rheumatism after drinking jenever…
We had a lovely lunch together, after which the chocolate lovers among us visited a glorious chocolate shop to buy some exquisite chocolates to take home.