Wintertime!!

My street in the snow

some brave children made this first snowman late at night!

It snows! It really snows and it snows right away big time! It was predicted but I thought it would be of that melting messy kind. This morning when I was driving to work I heard on the radio that some places had already 10 cm of snow, but I didn't see a flake, exept on some cars driving by. I must honestly admit that I was a bit disappointed. The entire day was dry and there was no snow to see until 30 km from home. And now it keeps on falling down and as you can see , my street has already been transformed in a white scenery. Very very unusual for november. Except for last year, we don't usually get a lot of snow that remains.

3 weeks ago we still had 20 C! And in the last week it all of a sudden turned into winter with freezing temperatures all week and now we got snow. Although it seems that Belgium is escaping from the worst weather: in the Netherlands they had at one point today 800 kms of traffic jam!! (I guess that average length of the netherlands is about 400 km?)

I must say I was already in the winter mood this week. With the predicted freezing temperatures I stuffed my gloves and hat and scarf in my suitcase as well. In Liège, they were putting up the Christmas decorations everywhere in the street and setting up the boots that will hold the Christmas market later on in December. That always adds to the nice atmosphere although Christmas is of course still very far away.

On Wednesday we (= my team mates that were also staying in the hotel) found this really nice little restaurant after a good walk through the cold. It wasn't very big but had a huge fireplace in the middle. You know how it goes: you go in all frozen and soon enough you are all cosy and warm with red cheeks inside. I love the warmth of a fireplace. Having a fireplace is really a must for me, it is so cosy, so warm and a very special warmth. Then it doesn't matter it's a little too hot. In that restaurant we could all table barbecue on little built in bbq's. So we were soon all hanging over the warm coles, turning our meat around on the grill , adding salads and gratinated patotoes and different sauces. It was a very nice and cosy evening. Perfect type of dining for a cold day.

Don't you think that cold weather just makes everybody feel like cocooning inside. Can't imagine now that a couple of months ago, it was hot outside and that we wanted outdoor activities and active stuff. Now I just feel like being at home, watching tv with Jan, sipping a hot milk in the sofa. Hmmm great. I might just go and sit in the coach right now.