A "real" winter

After almost 10 days of subzero temperatures (and almost a week with snow still on the ground), I feel like I am living in a land with a "real" winter !!!

Yep, it still hasn't been above about -4C during the day and is still getting down to -13C, -15C (and in some places, -20C !!) overnight. Apparently a once in a 10 year occurrence. The coldest I have had it during the day so far was cycling to work yesterday morning at -9C brrrrrr - even with my woolly (and oh so glamorous) beanie on, my head was freezing! Kids are going to school with sleds instead of bikes; the asphalt on many freeways is cracking up; science and maths classes are being replaced with ice skating lessons; employees are able to take time off work (or leave early for the day) as "ice free" so they can go ice skating (!!!!); and our street is one big hazardous skating rink.

And talking about ice skating, EVERYONE (except, I think, Jeroen & I!) is out on the ice skating their little hearts out :-) It seems it's the only topic of conversation at the moment - how was the ice yesterday, when can I go skating again, will there be an Elfstedentocht. There must have been thousands of mugs of hot chocolate and probably even more bowls of "snert" (the Dr Seuss sounding nickname of the thick, hearty and soul warming Dutch pea soup) consumed out there by now!

I must admit, even though I am a bit over the cold, that the landscape looks so picture perfect at the moment. During the nights the heavy mist freezes in all the trees so everything is frosted over. And with the bright blue skies and sunny days we are having, everything sparkles like diamonds during the day :-) I've added a few photos from around the local area just to give you an idea of how it looks here at the moment.

Alli xxx

PS The funniest thing I have seen to date - two people skiing past our living room window last night :-)

Snow angels everywhere

Hello, and a belated Happy 2009 to anyone who happens to read this ;-))

We are experiencing a real "cold snap" here at the moment!! It snowed overnight on Sunday so we are currently blanketed with the white stuff. Usually any snow melts away pretty quickly BUT at the moment it is SO cold that the snow is still with us. For the first time in years overnight temperatures have been around
-15C for the past couple of nights (and getting colder!), and it hasn't been above approx. -4C during the day! brrrrrrrrrr

It is lovely and bright & sunny during the day, but bloody cold.......and REALLY cold (and extremely slippery) cycling to work in the morning. It all looks picture perfect but, bloody hell, it is not nice to actually get out and about in. I had a real "ice-cream headache" by the time I got to work this morning - must remember to wear my hat on the way home tonight!

Every night in a lot of big cities there are volunteers out and about on the streets searching for homeless people to make sure they have a temporary roof over their heads and are not sleeping outside; the onboard toilets on some trains are out of service because all the water is frozen; and all those ice skating freaks are beside themselves (and waiting, waiting, waiting to see if an Elfstedentocht (11 city ice skating race) is possible for the first time since 1997!!)

Alli xxx