nature – Awesome wonder

Cold misty morning

Finally had time to edit some photos I made two weeks ago when it was very cold and a blanket of mist lay over the water and fields. Beautiful!

In October last year (you see I’m a bit behind with my photo editing…), we visited the island of Texel off the coast of North Holland. We planned to hike the first two stages of the Noord Hollandpad – a trail that winds through the whole province.

The first stage starts near the dunes and moves inland to the village of De Waal in the island’s center. It seemed a pity to be on an island and not see the sea, so we detoured to include the lighthouse and the beach. That of course meant that the already long stage became even longer…

Touring the inland of an island may be interesting when you are already familiar with all the things that make an island special, but I wouldn’t recommend it if you are new to the place, as we were. After kilometers and kilometers of dikes full of sheep (and what sheep leave behind), we were done with the trail (or trial), after a total of 24 km.

The next day my hip was so painful that we quit after 8 kilometers in the lovely town of Oudeschild. The museum and the lunchroom opposite the road were great to spend some time, and it was easy to arrange a taxi/bus to bring us back to the ferry.

Not quite the holiday we had hoped for but we had a good time!

First frost

We’ve lived here four months now, so it’s still a time of firsts. First storm, first Christmas, and now the first really frosty morning. And oh how beautiful it is!

Blue

Blue Monday – officially peak time for the winter blues – is in 10 days from now, but today the countryside seemed to really feel blue.

Winter

I’ve spent the new year mostly in bed and on the couch with the flu. Today I felt better and a dusting of snow invited me outside. So nice!

Zuiderwoude

I’ve been settling in in our new house. Gone are the forests of the Nijmegen region, but this area has real beauty too. I still needed a misty morning to get out with my camera – old habits die hard!

Bucket list

As we start the preparations for our move to the Amsterdam region, we also are thinking about what we will miss once we leave. So we’ve started a bucket list of things to do while we are still around. Number one for me was a visit to my favorite forest pool on the St Jansberg in Plasmolen. It never disappoints!

Other items on the list:

Lunch at the newly renovated castle Jachtslot Mookerheide
Dinner at the Plasmolense Hof
A visit to the Oriëntalis museum about Middle Eastern history and culture
A visit to the landscape museum in Berg en Dal

Painting Africa

In December last year, I hatched a crazy plan: to paint my experiences in Africa in a kind of journal style text & image paintings. I hadn’t painted in 10 years but suddenly it was like an urge to do this. Since then, I’ve been painting whenever I find time for it. It’s nowhere near perfect, but I do see improvement from the first paintings to now. Looking forward to where this journey will take me!

Autumn colors

It’s been so long since I found time to get out into the forest! But today I was working from home and when it started to get foggy I packed my camera and tripod and went out. A last chance to get some autumn colors!