Snow, donations and pea soup

Yesterday during the course of the morning it started snowing. At first the snowflakes were tiny, barely visible flakes, but a while later they became bigger and soon my neighborhood started looking like a Christmas card. I love seeing the world under a snow cover and was quite excited about it. On Fridays I always do an hour of training in the gym. I go there by bike, which normally takes me about six minutes. Because of the snow I gave myself plenty of time to get to the gym, which was a good idea because when I left the snow was at least 8 cm thick and still falling. There were some brave people cycling, but I was too frightened to slip and fall and ended up walking all the way, pushing my bicycle. So I had some extra exercise, ploughing through the snow there and back, about twenty minutes each way. 

On the left you see the view from our front door to the drive (and my son's bicycle) and the photo on the right is the view from the other side of the house. Just in front of the trees is the cycle path that goes into town. 

Today we had a hard frost (- 17 C. which is about 2 F.) but it was a sunny day with a beautifully blue sky. In the morning the trees were white and sparkling in the sunshine. There were lots of people skating on the frozen canals and kids sledging down the dykes. I had to enjoy the lovely winter weather on my own today as my husband Mike is in England for business and family visits, but fortunately our dog Chica loves the snow so I had a nice walk with her.

In the afternoon I caught up with the administration, paid some bills and gave donations to several charities (Save the Children/Campaign for Tibet/Leprosy Foundations/Friends of the Earth).

And  for dinner I made a thick Dutch pea soup, a hearty meal on a winter's day like today. Wishing you all a nice weekend!