The winter-blues

The best medicine to cure the winter-depression in the dark days before Sinterklaas - is to go outdoors to collect the last glimpse of daylight. I know I need this, and yet I find it sometimes hard to get out of my comfort-zone (the central-heated home) and to enjoy the wet and cold outside. This morning a “kick under my ass” from my dear partner was needed to make me do the first step.

A few minutes later I was part of another world: in the Nieuwkoopse Plassen – a nature reserve in the middle of the Randstad. It was calm and quiet – no-one outside, even the fisher-men decided to stay home today: I was alone with the birds (and the fish, hidden deep in the cold water below me).

Later it started to snow. Now Pdf, drysuit and paddle mitts were the new comfort zone.

With a sunny mind – the winter blues forgotten - I returned in the small town of Noorden at the finish point of a relaxed Sunday-morning paddle-trip.