Visiting up north

We went for a weekend visit to Andrew's cousin Klaas and his wife Hilda who run a bed and breakfast in Wirdum, a small village in the province of Groningen in the north of Holland.  The people are very Groningen nationalistic and the language they speak is actually Gronings rather than Dutch.  It is not a dialect of Dutch but a separate language, a sort of cross between Dutch and German.  Klaas and Hilda made us very welcome and looked after us for a long weekend.
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The photo above is on the journey up there and it is to illustrate how very green everything in the Netherlands is.  For a country about a third of the size of Hungary and almost double the population (17m) it is amazingly green and does not give the impression that it is a rather overcrowded country. The photo is of a small town and like all other towns, it is verdant and lush.  Gardens are nicely kept and while very close to each other, you do not get a sense of being crowded.

Klaas and Hilda's house in Wirdum.  The local canal is right opposite and the road winds around it. We took walks alongside it and also bicycled in the woods.

Klaas is on the left and we are taking photos. In the background is a structure for also attracting the wild bees which do not make honey but fertilise the flowers.  Klaas is, among other things, a beekeeper.

Andrew being a beekeeper.  He enjoyed helping Klaas but on another occasion they were fiddling around with the bees Andrew got bitten on the lip which is still swollen two days later.

The chicken run with the two turkeys.  We had a turkey egg for breakfast - never had one before.  It is not unlike a duck egg but even slightly bigger.  Klaas and Hilda also sell their eggs.

Large stone house in the village.  The photo shows Hilda with the two dogs Wolf and Olga.  They are some sort of German hunting dogs and when Klaas takes them for a run on his bicycle they pull him along.  Unfortunately I did not manage to get a shot of that.

We went to the nearest big town of Appingedam where these houses above the canal had kitchens added to them.  They are added on the outside of the houses in case of fire, providing an unusual sight.

The synagogue in Appingedam.  It is a reformed Dutch church now with plans to make it a museum. There is a memorial right opposite, dedicated to all the Jews of the town who did not return after the Holocaust and there are signs in the town pointing the way to the synagogue.  The town obviously wishes to honour their Jewish dead, together with the wreaths placed outside  the old church in the middle of the town for the soldiers who died in the war .