exercise | little home by hand

I’m finally through with sorting about 2000 photos from our wonderful easter weekend trip to the dutch island Ameland in the North Sea. We (three girlfriends and I) spent three days there.
We got up at the crack of dawn on friday and drove a couple of hours to catch the ferry over.
Once arrived we found that it was raining softly but steadily. Nevertheless, we were there for the beach and so we set out on foot for the sea.

The beach is lovely in sunshine, but wild and beautiful in rain and storm and we didn’t regret venturing out in the rain.
This could well be the moon, couldn’t it?

We fought our way against the wind for a while before hiking back down the dunes and heading back towards the village we were staying in. Despite the rain and temperatures barely above zero we were warm from the exercise.

Back in our cozy little apartment we hung up the wet things to dry and settled down for a cup of tea and a hearty dinner, exhausted but happy.

The next day greeted with sunshine and we set out by bikes we had hired to the beach to watch a demonstration of the horse lifeboat being launched into the sea (here’s some more information if you’re interested).

Don’t be fooled by the blue sky in the photos though, we actually had hail for a couple of minutes during the demonstration!
We were cold from standing around in the icy wind, so next we biked over to the next big village. It is tour of about 10km one way, against the wind not a small ride for untrained (as in, not having ridden a bike in months) office girls like us.

The landscape is beautiful though and the exercise felt so good after the long winter months. Even though I was fighting for breath and starting to feel really sore, I felt better with each mile. I guess I hadn’t realized how much pent up emotions from the last few months I needed to get out of my system.
On the way back to our village we took a long break in the dunes and did some photoshoots in the sunshine. The first one of my friend in her wedding dress is already up on my Photo Blog. I’ll let you know when the next ones are up.
After the approximately 30 km we had biked that day we were wiped out and watched the sunset on the beach, heading to a sheltered beach cafè once it got too cold.

On Sunday (our last full day) we decided to just take it slowly, so we slept in and then headed to the dunes to find a place out of the wind and in the sun to read and relax.

After a treat of cake and hot chocolate at the beach cafè (otherwise we ate and cooked very healthy, promise) we stayed to watch the locals light their easter bonfire on the beach. We had some very good, hot mulled wine and headed home sleepy on our bikes.

Since it was raining on Monday anyway we didn’t feel too badly about leaving and caught the ferry at midday to be back home by evening.
Only three days by the sea, but it felt like a couple of weeks worth of good on body and soul.

For more beach and landscape photos there’s a whole post on that on my photo blog!