Colourful Trees

As Mark said I might have something to say about the gardens, I thought I better be "obedient" and write something about the gardens!!!!!! They were fantastic. I didn't really know what it was I was going to and I certainly did not understand the size or number of flowers that we would see. It is all spring bulbs and plants and it is really amazing. There are so many different colours and types of flowers, including some displays of orchids and lillies inside greenhouses. So much colour everywhere and some lovely fragrances. We managed to combine the beautiful flowers with a bird of prey talk. All in Dutch but then the birds don't talk so it was great fun just watching them.
We went to Keukenhof on Liberation day. A national holiday every fifth year in Holland. As we drove there down many residential streets I was surprised at how many of the houses had a flag pole and a flag proudly flying. I some streets it was all the houses but in most streets it was at least half of the houses. A very different approach to celebrating than the one we might take.

The day before is Memorial day, on this day you fly your flag at half mast and at 8pm everything stops for 2 minutes. It was really nice to be here at this time of year and see some of the celebrations.

Not long before we had been driving through Germany just after May Day.  Apparently, the villages in Germany all cut a tall tree down and decorate it with ribbon and then put it up really high in the village, this is to stop the other villages from stealing their tree. They then go out and try and steal trees from other villages, it all sounds very strange, but it looks really lovely.