For my birthday in 2006, Marcel gave me a totally unexpected and wonderful gift – a flight lesson in Lelystad. Since watching a documentary about Emelia Erhardt when I was a little girl, I’ve always thought it would be cool to be a pilot.

I’m also envious of a bird’s ability to fly … the apparent freedom to come and go as you please is very appealing. On the 8th of March, Marcel and I headed to Lelystad from Zwolle, where we were living at the time. We’d just bought a house in Lelystad-Haven and we very excited about moving there in May.

It was a very crisp morning, and snow had fallen the night before. As we got to Lelystad Airport, the clouds magically disappeared and left a sparkly wonderland.

We hope you enjoy our photo album, and apologise for the quality of some of the photos. They were taken with an itty-bitty old camera, but it was such a special day … we had to share these pics. Hope you enjoy them too.