Winter!

Dutch people love to complain about the weather. It's probably the number one subject for small talk. But when winter really is winter, like it is now, everybody loves it. I didn't hear any complains about it yet. Minus 15 degrees Celsius at night, wow! Snow and ice with blue sky and sunshine - it can't be better! Okay, it's cold and it took me about 20 minutes to get the car ready to drive this morning, I had to scrape the ice from the outside and the inside of the windows, the drivers side of the car was frozen and I had to get inside on the other side of the car. The windshield wipers had disappeared under 3cm of frozen snow. But who cares? It's winter! :) And eventually I arrived at work in time.
Of course, it is very clever to have the plasterer working in our new house in this week, exactly when the central heating has been removed. There are ice drops on the air vents in our house right now... maybe we'll have icicles inside tomorrow? And there's so much moisture in the house as well. I really hope it all ends well and nothing gets damaged because of cold or moisture. I'll be happy when the plasterer is done with his job! Not only because it will be so much prettier after he's finished, but also because Martin and I can't do much right now and we'd love to get on with our own work!
But instead of worrying about those things, let's enjoy the winter and its beauty. I just saw a beautiful report on TV with images of skating people on big lakes in the western part of the Netherlands, where I used to live. And although I never watch sport in TV, I'm longing, like many other Dutch people, for an "Elfstedentocht" (Eleven Cities Tour), a legendary skating marathon in the Netherlands which haven't took place since 1997.
Unfortunately the report I just saw, is not yet online... so I'll just add another video, which also suits the occasion. It's from my favorite Dutch cabaret artist (and it's in Dutch, sorry for those who don't understand).