A few days sun means I could make a short kickbike tour to the hills. They will feed my needed portion of wonderment. Even though the nearby Hungarian hills are not that spectacular, it will give me more the view that bald trees provide me with.

However, the sun also kicks me into the garden, when the soil is not frozen, and suddenly I prepare and gather stuff to make the coming season a successful one. In the moment, working the garden feels as good as kickbiking to the Hungarian hills. Which are rather mediocre in size. At least I got a warm room to go to. If I, or Geo preferably, heat it.

Winter days in a tent provide me with a camp fire, which is always so incredible comfortable and hotter than any room I have heated but winter days on a kickbike or bicycle also means below average food.

Unless I prepare everything in advance. Raid the kitchen, fill small plastic sandwich bags with rationed portions of oats, seeds and nuts. Others with lentils, barley and quinoa. Pop some dukkah and press miso into small Nalgene containers. Prepare a Life Changing Bread or a fermented buckwheat variety and store it into the freezer until I leave. That way everything is ready to set off at once.

The food that fuels us, equally a burden and a desire. When in life, and in love, with the homegrown and self-made there simply is no return. Because when the sun shines I suddenly leap into action in and around the house, making a trip to the hills superfluous.

My atelier where I sew the hand embroidered and hand dyed pouches together.

Stepping into the cold from a warm cozy former stable into a bleak cloud covered or worse, drizzling gray horse blanketed sky, is not something inviting. I could take a flight and do as so much others do: avoid the winter for a short while. Yeah, I could do that.

Parting with a home is not that easy anymore. Starting to rethink the common normal, basics like your daily diet become troublesome when touring. Taking a flight is not easy on a born over-lander. Boxing your vehicle and deal with transport anxiety, airplane stress and being plonked into a sudden frame feels like reheating a hamburger.

Feelings of great desire and a world beyond the barren trees I look at can overwhelm me at times. It’s a world I imagine warm, which is far from where we live and not possible overland without abandoning all I love. That is what a fully cloud covered sky does to me. Low hanging blanket of clouds are the culprit. Then, faster than a snake, my mood changes when the sun is out and about.

The thought of being in such extraordinary beauty comes with a stinging afterthought: food in accordance. Suddenly my desire shrinks like our grapes did prematurely previous season. Getting wholeheartedly into new concepts, not to mention the task of growing it all myself, expels longer travel. But… the short dark winter days are not a reset nor a needed rest nor an ascetic winter club retreat. They are a tight tie-up touching parts of my body, making them itch, having them go and inevitably come back.

Until the sun appears, pulling smooth my mood to a shiny blank sheet of satin, desiring only what is in front of me, it is wholesome food with only a vague afterthought of any desert as dessert. Sun strikes at the itchy threads that make up for the winter bind and the realization that any tour comes with hassle and compromise when out of the eternal tour mode. Dawn tells me that the current mode has its own ways.

In winter the light diffuses naked trees into a haze of cold, pretty to look at. From behind a heated window. The sun slowly bathing them in a soft orange glow and I know the whispering beauty and contentment of being in camp. Where days are long, even if they’re winter short. If there was more than trees, naked and cold. Close-by. Would I go?

The cruelty of cats... good thing the bird’s life is out and it will be eaten in totality. The cats have pretty much the same natural approach to a diet like I do.

Part II

20 thoughts on “It is SAD”

    1. Hi Felix, it would be Baranya hills since Mártra is about 4 hours by car and by kickbike it would be probably 2 weeks for me. I will go there too, one day, but not in winter so far off with so little guaranty to dry weather.

      Have you cycled here? How was it to you?

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        1. Wow! That’s 53 years ago! I was not even born. In that case, it was probably a bit different than it would be now. But I remember that we wrote each other a bit back and forth about the subject 😉

          It was probably… hilly 🤭 Mátra counts 1000 meter at the point where you can only walk to. Which Geo and I did (unprepared and ill timed but I could see the beauty, even though it was December and icy cold).

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    1. I thought about ice skating too but I honestly think what the SAD needs is SUNLIGHT and WARMTH and NEW views.

      We could buy skiing stuff or langlauf equipment yes… but not much else would change with that.

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      1. There was nothing I liked more than ice skating in the Dutch winters (where have they gone?). Experimenting the same surroundings in a different way feels like a change of views.

        But yeah, I little sun and warmth will do good, right? We need some dry days – we just had 2 after many months of rain… I think spring will come soon ^_^

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        1. I agree, with same surroundings creating new experiments, I do that with the photographs. I have walked these paths sooo often that I tell myself to look different each time I see them.

          Ice skating is something that I did a lot too in winter. I liked going on over tiny slootjes, further off and even to off limits islands in the polder.

          This is my first winter really where we are so settled and done with all work that possibly could be done that I need new horizons. The traveler in me tells me SAD is a good reason.

          You will enjoy your dry sunny days very soon in Spain!

          Is the rain there continuous in the winter months? Is also quite SAD?

          🤭😉♥️🌸

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          1. Yes, Galicia can be quite SAD. When it’s not raining, we are covered in fog making our world feel so tiny.

            But, there are many hotsprings nearby so we can still fully emerge ourselves in the outdoors!

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            1. And Galicia has hills, streams, lakes, and ow, hot springs, I love them too!

              Maybe you are relatively close to the ocean even? But what I get from your stories is not.

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    1. Hahaha, jij maakt me aan het lachen!

      Geo scrollde door de foto’s gisteren, op zijn weg van Duitsland terug naar hier, en was zo verrast eens géén kattenfoto’s te zien. Hij vond het een verademing! Tot de laatste paar foto’s, enkel katten…

      Koen, de katten zijn mijn licht en maken me zo blii, en in ruil voor eten blijven ze aan mijn zijde. Daarom zie je ze zoveel op de foto.

      Hou jij niet van katten dan?

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  4. Hi Cindy, a former colleague told me once that we must experience the dark days to appreciate the light. Maybe that’s from the Bible, I’m not sure.

    Now we’re at the end of January. The worst days are behind The sparkling white snow also brings some light into the greyness.

    More practically, I may suggest that you try Lake Balaton for a change. I think it’s close to where you live. The wide space at the lakeshore gives perspective. It’s huge and bright. It’s surface may be frozen now which provides a unique experience. Cheers up the soul. Not an omniscent remedy, still may make your day.

    Another destination may be the hot spa in Zalakaros, maybe an hour drive from you. On a quiet weekday it may not be crowded.

    Hope you’ll find some relief until Spring comes

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    1. Hello someone,

      I’m pretty sure it is somewhere in the Bible, and I agree that we must experience dark in order to appreciate light, in all sorts of spheres. But I also think we don’t need to experience clouds and rain over again to appreciate the light. Sunlight is simply always appreciated, except perhaps when you have a light allergy : )

      Lake Balaton is not that close to us and a hot spa I would love, would it be in the open nature, without buildings nor other people. I am allergic to bikinis: )

      I think back of hot springs when I was in Central America and among monkeys and sometimes chicken from undoubtedly a nearby farm, it was the ideal setting. No one in view, no buildings and just simply nature. I also remember the hot baths (literally) in Iran which was in a building and I did enjoy it yet the great thing of Iran was of course the separation of the genders, which I highly appreciate.

      Getting older we don’t get easier.

      Greetings from light seeking us

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    1. Thank you Anna, for interacting with me on this one. I know that you are in summer now, which seems to hold endless possibilities, Australian summer!

      How beautiful to say ‘moods of winter – so gloomy but also with hope’ : )

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      1. Oh yes we’ve had a long hot summer smashing all sorts of heat records! Your photos are such “another world” for me! I’m hoping if I stare long enough at them I might cool down a bit?

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I am very curious to your thoughts and ideas. Please, bring them on : )

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