It is always fun to meet up with Janna (Timelessstyle.nl on Instagram), usually in Amsterdam. This time we went to a grand old house, known as the Willet-Holthuysen House. Quote: “This double mansion on the Herengracht contains many period rooms, spaces seemingly frozen in time.” The house takes its name from the couple who lived there in the late 19th century, Abraham Willet and Louisa Holthuysen. They were extremely wealthy. You are in for a bit of history in this post and many photos.
Knowing that Janna and I always take photos of each other’s outfit, I wracked my brain to come up with a new combination from my own wardrobe. I wanted to be comfortable to walk through Amsterdam and the museum. This jeans outfit shows some new and some reasonably new stuff. The black flat shoes are from my outlet haul a couple of weeks ago; the brown earrings areLara Design which I don’t wear very often and I think I have worn the belt once. The bracelet is fairly new and matches rather well with the belt. I needed a ‘tough’ bag and the bronze one meets that requirement. All set to go.
Below: A word about the new shoes. They were the perfect choice for the day, only I had thought I could also wear them with bare feet (I was wearing transparent socks) but I doubt that now. The right heel is a bit rigid. Worth a try though and perhaps I can beat the heel a couple of times with a hammer.
The photo shoot at House Willet-Holthuysen
We started in the garden.
Below: The part of the garden near the house.
Below: The whole garden. A shame that those modern apartments spoil the view.
Below: There were several statues in the garden. This one lost part of his nose.
Below: Janna took many photos of my outfit. Difficult to choose. The bag is second-hand Mulberry, bought several years ago.
Below: For the sitting down pose, I had to wipe the chair dry.
(I don’t like this top at the back. Too long.)
Below: Yes, that pose is in the pocket.
Below: Statues! There were a few in the garden and we used them as props.
Below: Close-up.
Below: Lovely. It will be even better when that whole wall is green.
Below: We used the statue in the photo above as background for Janna’s photo. I should have aimed my camera a bit higher so the statue’s face would be in the photo. My bad. I love that golden colour of Janna’s top.
Inside the House Willet-Holthuysen
Below: We started with the kitchen.
Below: Janna threatened to throw a potato or a piece of bread at me.
Below: Through to the hall. Janna admiring the wall panel decoration.
Below: For your interest, I copied a few explanations.
Below: Full view of one of the wall panels. There were many of them. They had no kids and money to burn.
Below: Explanation about the drawing room which you will see in the video following.
Below: You can hear Janna’s voice halfway through the video, saying she thinks she could live there.
Below: Explanation of the saloon and a photo of it.
Below: Explanation of the dining room plus photo. Just imagine, you had to do the dishes by hand. No wonder they had a lot of staff.
Below: Upstairs were other rooms, bedroom, office etc etc. I only photographed a few details, like this painted ceiling.
Below: I fell in love with these curtain holdbacks. I would have bought them too.
Below: On the top floor we saw a big painting of the Chief Commissioners of the Wharves.
Below: There was an intriguing detail. The man second from left had a tattoo. It is the first known tattoo in the Netherlands in history. See the explanation underneath the photo.
Below: Explanation and photo of the stairwell.
It was a grand house. And, as is usually the case, such wealth is gathered at the expense of many poor people.
Below: We liked the museum and went for a lunch in a pub with the window open to the terrace. A sort of inside but also outside.
What happened in my life this week
Below: We had two neighbour couples around for dinner on Saturday. The main course was paella and for dessert we had crema Catalana.
We live in a fabulous street where quite a few neighbours have become friends. We get on really well with the two couples above.
Friends Froukje and Petro also live in our street and we meet regularly. Lovely Loes lives in our street. And Mandy too, with whom I finally had coffee in town. Busy bee as she is.
Marjolein and I had another photo shoot in Leiden for next week’s post. Fun as always.
Furthermore, I did a lot of exercises for the Posture Course.
As I told you at the beginning of June, one Dutch reader (Marianne) responded to my cry for help to correct my posture and she sent me a link with the text: “This helps“. The Dutch link was: “Hou van je houding” (Dutch).
The method is called YogaAlign and the founder of YogaAlign is an American woman called Michaelle Edwards. Here is the link to Michaelle’s explanation in English.
I read the Dutch website, looked at the reviews and joined. A course was starting that same day.
Even though I had paid the fee for the course, I was very sceptical (but also hopeful). After all, I had already tried to improve my posture 28 (!!) times before with various courses, therapies, tools and nothing helped.
THIS HELPED!
After two weeks I noticed I was walking straight and my head was alligned. I never thought that 14 days would be enough to change anything. The idea behind it is, to activate your inner core muscles instead of strengthening your outer movement muscles (hope I reproduce this the correct way).
Of course, I have to continue doing the exercises if I want to keep myself straight. With this result? No problem. I am so happy.
Below: A flattering (NOT 😱) photo collage of my old posture (left) and my new posture (right) after 19 days. I wonder whether I will improve further, but I am already so pleased with this result. In real life you’d notice the improvement even more. The two kilos I gained in these 19 days, went straight to my belly. I am trying to get rid of it again.
Friday was a scorching hot day. We started at the beach to let Watson cool off.
Below: Ron posing tough. The dog behind him is not Watson.
Below: Me at the beach. Although I am not slouching any longer, I am obviously lopsided. My left lower leg changed position to relieve the pain in my arthritis knee, but that means I am lopsided through my whole body. I am going to discuss the risks of getting a new knee again. Being this lopsided cannot be good for my body.
Below: As we were leaving the beach, a bride and groom arrived in a MINI car, for their beach wedding.
Below: In the afternoon I met Marjon, the stylist whom I met at the shoe outlet sale a couple of weeks ago (website The Curated Self). We had a lovely chat on a terrace in the shade (it was still sweltering hot). Of course, styling was a topic on repeat.
Below: This is my high summer dress by RIXO London. Have had it for years and used to wear it with high red patent leather peep toe pumps. No more. These are my new sandals. (Link to original post with the dress and high heels.)
Greetje
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