Back to that long walk we had with the dogs and family in Holland – one of the things I love about that area is that most of the houses are very individual, generally designed by the original owners and built by a local builder. So below are a few of the rural houses we passed whilst walking the dogs.

The hedge and trees in the photo below look like they’ve been trimmed by manicure scissors, and apparently the man who cuts it does it all by eye, no guide string required.

The house below has ‘built in 1918’ on it, it looks fairly modern to me though. I find it difficult to judge how old the houses are as they are all built of the same sort of bricks as nowadays. I haven’t seen any stone built houses there at all. It’s rare to see an unkempt house and garden, Dutch people seem to be very houseproud.

The photo below is one of the roads we were walking on, amazingly straight. If you have no hills to manouever roads around then there’s no reason not to have straight lines I suppose.

We were there in early May, the spring was late, so lots of the trees were just beginning to get their leaves.

The sheep were gathered expectantly at the gate for some reason, but we had to disappoint them, we had nothing for them.

We walked round in a big circle and must have gone about four or five miles on what turned out to be the hottest day we had there. Well it keeps you fit!