When Spring came there were no problems except where to be happiest.

Posted by Trudy Florence on May 19, 2012 in All, Life, Life in Holland | 2 comments

The perfect Spring day has today consisted of market shopping; a new haircut; delicious lunch; pimping my bike; a beautiful bike ride; adorable animals and lots of sunshine.

All this for only 15Euro. It’s feast time tonight!

I love eating lunch at home, in my favourite spot of course.

I pimped my ride and added a pretty basket to Tom’s bike. Perfect for carrying beers to the park.

I decided to test out my new crate and loaded it up with goodies for an afternoon in the park.

The beautiful Kralingse Bos.

Where I saw these guys!!

Deery me they are just too gorgeous!

I love the goats, they are so full of character!

This little guy thought my finger was a teat which was adorable until he started using his teeth. His poor Mama!

These guys just wanted to cuddle, they had no time for me.

I can just imagine these guys having a good gossip through the fence.

This cheeky guy kept trying to eat my skirt through the fence.

I love his furry boots.

This little sheep on the right was so cute, when he baa’ed he sounded like an old man burping and he kept running around frantically wiggling his tail like a happy puppy.

After all that animal loving it was time for a bit of a read in the sun by the lake.

Spring – you’re doing it right.

My trusty steed.

*Post title from Ernest Hemmingway’s ‘A Moveable Feast’ which I’m currently reading. I am in love. If I could marry a book and have little book babies I would.

The day is still gorgeous here so I’m waiting for Tommy to come home from work and together we will enjoy this lovely Spring evening.

Moments in Paris.

Posted by Trudy Florence on May 18, 2012 in All, Travels, When in Paris | 2 comments

A few moments from our Paris adventure.

We were on the high speed train at Rotterdam Centraal at 8am, ready with our coffees and books for our 2 and a half hour trip through Holland, Belgium and France – that’s right, 3 countries in under 3 hours. This Europe place is crazy small!

Red velvet chairs and a view of the French countryside. Trains are by far my favourite way to travel.

We were in our apartment in Montmartre by 11am melting over this view. Not bad ‘eh?

Our neighbourhood, right at the foot of the Sacre Coeur.

The view up the hill.

and down over Paris towards old Eif. It was good to see him again.

Tom squishing one of the most recognisable monuments in the world.

We had really beautiful weather the whole time we were there, each day was nicer than the last. We spent a lot of time on the little balcony soaking up the sun.

Just a little bit excited to be in Paris.

Six flights of these gorgeous stairs meant we had a perfect excuse to scoff down Parisian treats for three days.

I’m off to enjoy my Friday off. I have very important plans including some Grey’s Anatomy episodes and Bikram Yoga, perhaps there will be some more Paris photos later today. Happy Friday everyone.

Life is simple.

Posted by Trudy Florence on May 17, 2012 in All, Travels, When in Paris | 2 comments

Firstly – watch this video. I’ve watched it a couple of times now and I love it more each time. I love the message, I love the real people in it and I love the bikes (of course!). This really is my life mission.

Keep it simple.
Love openly.
Travel often.
Eat well.
Create. Create. Create.

Sometimes I get all caught up in the end view, the making money side (which I’m not). But really, as long as I have money to do the things I love and to live a life that fulfills me does it really matter? Tom said to me the other day, “I really like making money and thinking about investing money but it doesn’t really bother me when I don’t have any.” He can make it that simple and it really should be. Money has been a very constant theme in our lives for the last 2 years, firstly saving up enough money to move our lives overseas while also managing a mortgage in Brisbane that still has many years left on it. We’ve had a few unforeseen hurdles recently which has meant our safety net has all but completely gone but you know what? I don’t regret a thing.
Yes, we could still be in Brisbane working at a bank earning good money and saving and saving and saving but we wouldn’t have seen the things we’ve seen, been inspired the way we’ve been inspired or become who we’ve become.

There are some creative projects on the go in the little Rotterdam apartment that hopefully will turn into something very exciting and fulfilling – and perhaps make some money along the way. We’ll see.

In the meantime; travel often. Getting lost often means finding who we really are.

From last weekend when we jumped on the train and arrived in Paris two and a half hours later. Many more photos to come!

What I love most about my home is you in it

Posted by Trudy Florence on May 9, 2012 in All, Life, Life in Holland | 8 comments

I’ve really come to love our little apartment in the best location in town (perhaps I am a little biased but it really is an awesome spot). It came fully furnished but we’ve added our own little touches and I think it certainly has a bit of Tom & Trudy charm to it.

Our big window seat overlooking the busy street is one of my favourite features. From here I display flowers, store blankets and sit and drink tea while watching all the bicycles and doggies go past.

Our kitchen is TINY, it holds a mini fridge hidden in a cupboard, a very large freezer along with our washing machine. It may have very little bench space but in the afternoon and evenings it gets the most amazing sun and is such a lovely space to be in while cooking dinner.

We have some very cute decorations dotted around thanks to the owner/previous tenants. I love this retro advertising girl in our kitchen. Flowers tend to be a constant feature in our home thanks to how prevalent and affordable they are here. These orange beauties were a gift from a girlfriend to celebrate our first Queens Day in Holland.

One of the ‘quirks’ of our little apartment is the fact that our bed is so large and the bedroom so small that as a result our bedroom door doesn’t actually shut. For a semblance of privacy when we have visitors stay I’ve hung a little curtain that when not in use is tied back with a pretty ribbon from a Mum package. On the right is a glimpse of my jar and bottle collection. I use them for everything from storing food to using them as vases and candle holders. I cannot throw them away and as such our kitchen windowsill is developing quite a collection.

Our bedroom faces the same way as the kitchen so the afternoon sun is just beautiful in this room, I open up the blinds (that fall off the rails as soon as you touch them) and lie curled up like a cat in the sun with one of my many library books. It’s delicious.

Our little European apartment comes complete with the basin in our bedroom at the foot of our bed. It’s a funny thing to get used to and that I think stumps our visitors the first time they go searching for the sink to wash their hands in. As a result of our limited space I’ve set up a bit of a display in the living room where I keep my jewelry and lipstick collection. I like it out here.

The cabinet where I display my jewelry came complete with an extensive glass collection, Tom especially loves all the fancy beer glasses that he drinks his favourite beers in. Next to this cabinet is the dining room table which we have converted into our office desk / my art table. It’s littered with many things including the laptop, scanner, speakers and all sorts of my art gear including many journals.

Seeing as this room is where we spend most of our time I try to keep it bright and personal. I’ve started a display on the wall with a flower from each bunch of flowers I have had. Hopefully this will grow a lot more before we leave! Tom’s skateboard has turned into a handbag rack which I know he loves…

I’ve collected quite a few gorgeous vintage Dutch books, they are a great source of inspiration for my journalling and papercutting. We always eat in our big living room as well, always on the couch or on the floor with cushions if we have people over.

Tom has a love for ships that he has passed along to me and our collection here is starting to rival the collection I had started back at home. These are some of the market beauties that I just couldn’t walk away from, even if I am already wary of how much they are going to cost to get home!

This wall has become one of my favourite spaces in our home. It has become a visual memory of some of my favourite moments since we have been in Europe – photos, prints, pages from magazines and postcards and of course Laura’s hand made angel on the stack of Dutch books always watching over us.

More of the ship collection and just some of the mail that is always either coming or going. Getting mail always makes me so happy and I’m normally tearing into it before I’ve even gotten into the apartment about which Tom teases me about every time.

My beautiful window.

Travel book inspiration on our bookshelf.

Things are always changing and shifting as much as it can in this temporary home, I will share more little spaces if you would like to see them? Already there is a new shoe display that has cropped up since I took these photographs, perhaps that needs to be shared. We are having many friends and family visit this coming year and I cannot wait to show them our home but for those that cannot visit in person I hope you feel as though you know our home a little better now.

Getting my creative on.

Posted by Trudy Florence on May 6, 2012 in All, Papercutting | 2 comments

It’s been a bit of a hibernation weekend in our little neck of the woods. This however has meant some dedicated art time which I’ve been craving as of late. The following are all recently made, unique papercuttings of my own design.

These are all for sale, they come on their own without the coloured backing but you can place them on whatever background you prefer, hang them as they are or frame them. I think they look especially cute attached to the wall with a wooden peg or some cute washi tape.

Enquiries through Facebook or to trudyrottier@gmail.com

Of course, as always I’m more than happy to discuss custom papercuttings.

Happy Tuesday.

Posted by Trudy Florence on May 1, 2012 in All, Photography | 0 comments

Bad Hair Day

Posted by Trudy Florence on Apr 29, 2012 in All, Life in Holland | 5 comments

Yesterday was the first day of a well needed 3 day weekend for me. Tommy is not as lucky unfortunately and is at the start of an 8 day week, he even had to cycle to work in the cold just after 6 this morning as the metros don’t run that early on a Sunday. I plan on cooking him a very yummy dinner this evening and looking after him very well I promise!

For me however yesterday was a gorgeous day. I cycled to Bikram in the chilly wind and by the time I was home and showered my girl Kirsten was at the door. We had a wander through the markets, did some bikini shopping (she did, I have no beach holiday on the agenda unfortunately), checked out the shops in the city and then stumbled across something very interesting. In a little park in the city centre was a display set up for Zig Zag, an architecture festival that is currently going on around Rotterdam. There were two people set up with air guns offering free hairdo’s. We couldn’t resist of course! Tears of laughter and some very sore stomach muscles later and we had some pretty awesome looking hair. We ducked into a shop to visit a friend on our way home whose first response was ‘What the fuck?’ Yep, we looked good.

A local photographer snapped these amazing pics of us so you are lucky enough to see our hair in all it’s glory. I just couldn’t keep these all to myself of course!

The rest of the afternoon was spent chilling at our favourite cafe, chatting with waiters about Aussie music and laughing way too loudly.

Today has been a chilled out Mad Men watching, market wandering, library visiting kind of day. As I said earlier, tonight is for cooking a yummy dinner and looking after the boy. Tomorrow is Queen’s Day, the official Dutch national holiday and an event involving a lot of orange, city wide flea markets and a big party with all our friends. The weather for the rest of the week is as it has been for the last month, rainy and miserable apart from tomorrow which is going to be 21 and sunny apparently! Even the weather is patriotic here in Holland, Queen’s Day is a big deal people. I’m sure we will have many orange filled photos to share once the day is over.

Happy Sunday all.