Worse things happen at sea

A lazy start to the day, before heading in to Amsterdam and the Maritime Museum (via a Grebe fight spotted in the harbour by my tall ornithological companion).

The museum was more fun than you might expect, with a replica sailing ship from the Dutch East India Company that was full of great things for the kids to explore, touch, smell and clamber over. Inside the building were collections of naval art (which CarbBoy found more to his taste than the other art we have seen), globes, model boats and, above, navigational instruments.

On then on a long trek across town (meeting our first rude Amsterdammer on the way - the tram driver who shouted at us because he had run out of day passes to sell us) to our new favourite lunch destination (highlighted here a few days ago). To our horror it was closed!

In desperation, we tried another cafe across the canal and lucked out again with a fantastically friendly place - with more super-fast service, excellent pancakes and a huge cheeseburger for me. There was even the owner's cute Jack Russell terrier to play with. A French family joined in the fun and necessitated much translation between the owner and the French folk by my kids. Good to be useful!

We had planned to visit the modern art gallery after lunch (mainly as an excuse to be at the right end of town for the good lunch place), but over lunch I spotted in the guide book that there was a stables just around the corner which looked good for a ten minute visit... Turned out we were there for an hour and a half.

Once we found the unassuming galleried entrance (mainly by TallGirl's finely attuned nose following the aroma of hay and poo that wafts from every stables) we entered TallGirl's idea of heaven. Stalls full of beautiful shiny friendly horses and a manège that looked more like a Regency theatre than a place to ride ponies.

We sat on the gallery, sipping tea, watching a girl with too short stirrups trying to rise to the trot, while a lady took a huge elegant bay through her paces - and TallGirl lectured me about the double bridle and how to train a horse to come into collect (or something - I guess when she spends all those long hours in her room she's not just drawing insects and dreaming of boys).

So we didn't make it to the art gallery; well, we saw the outside (giant bathtub, of course) and popped into the shop, but 35 euros for 20 minutes was deemed too much (why does everything here close at 5pm?) and a flick through the 'highlights of the gallery' book reassured me that I hadn't missed that much.

Home via the flower market to buy too many bulbs to fit our 'hand luggage only' policy, a quick dinner of pizza at the airport with Mr B then home to figure out the packing conundrum and relax in front of BBC telly.

It's been a packed 10 days - exhausting but a lot of fun. It's been a long time since I spent so much time with the kids and I'd quite forgotten how exhausting that is!