Image caption Zoe Averianov threw the letter into the sea when she was a schoolgirl 
 
 A woman who threw a message in a bottle into the North Sea more than 20 years ago has received a reply after it was discovered in the Netherlands. 
 
 Zoe Averianov, from Hebden Bridge, was 10 when she threw the note as she went on holiday on a ferry from Hull to Belgium on 12 September 1990. 
 
 Over Christmas she was given a letter sent from Europe which had been posted to her parents' address. 
 
 Ms Averianov said she was surprised at how far the message had travelled. 
 
 The envelope, addressed to Ms Averianov's maiden name, contained her original letter and a reply from a couple in the Netherlands. 
 
 Her letter had read: "Dear finder, my name is Zoe Lemon. Please would you write to me, I would like it a lot. 
 
 "I am 10 years old and I like ballet, playing the flute and the piano. I have a hamster called Sparkle and fish called Speckle." 
 
 The reply read: "Dear Zoe, yesterday on one of my many walks with my wife along the dikes of Oosterschelde looking among the debris thrown by the sea of embankment I found a little plastic bottle containing your message." ||||| When schoolgirl Zoe Lemon threw a bottle with a message inside into the sea she soon forgot about it. 
 
 But 23 years later she has been stunned to receive a reply – after the bottle was discovered more than 350 miles away in the Netherlands. 
 
 Zoe, who has since married and lives in Salford, tossed the letter into the sea as she left Hull on a ferry for a family holiday to Germany when she was just 10. 
 
 The mum – whose surname is now Averianov – was flabbergasted when her parents called for Christmas and said they had post from Europe. 
 
 It turned out to be a reply to her letter from Piet and Jacqueline Lateur from near Rotterdam. 
 
 MEN Zoe Lemon as a schoolgirl, with her letter 
 
 Piet was walking his dog in the Oosterschelde dykes, near where he and his wife Jacqueline live in Serooskerke, when he found the bottle with Zoe’s letter inside. 
 
 Zoe, 33, who works in a jewellery shop and lives in Pendleton, said: “It’s been a bit crazy really. 
 
 "My parents came to visit on Christmas day and they had this letter from Europe addressed to my maiden name, Lemon. 
 
 “The first thing I saw was my handwriting as a child and my little letter saying who I was and about my pets and my hobbies. It made me a bit emotional.” 
 
 Since receiving the letter, Zoe has been in contact with Piet via email and asked to see photographs of where the bottle was found. 
 
 He told her: “I am keeping your little letter on my piano. I know you are no longer a little girl but you asked me to write you so I have.”
– A UK woman got a pretty unexpected Christmas card this holiday season—a response to a 23-year-old message in a bottle she'd dropped in the North Sea as a child. While on a ferry from England to Belgium in 1990, Zoe Lemon—now Zoe Averianov—wrote a note explaining, "Dear finder, my name is Zoe Lemon. Please would you write to me, I would like it a lot." She added, "I am 10 years old and I like ballet, playing the flute and the piano. I have a hamster called Sparkle and fish called Speckle," and dropped it from the boat in a plastic bottle, the BBC reports. Fast forward to today, and Averianov, 33, says she's surprised just how far the message traveled—more than 350 miles. "My parents came to visit on Christmas Day and they had this letter from Europe addressed to my maiden name," she says. It turns out, the note washed ashore in the Netherlands, where Piet and Jacqueline Lateur found it, then returned it with a message of their own. "I know you are no longer a little girl but you asked me to write you so I have," the response read in part, per the Mirror. Piet and Averianov have kept up the communication, though this time, email is their method of choice. (But her note just isn't quite as old as what may be the oldest message found in a bottle.)