No more hope for skaters

Because it has been quite cold lately, many people already began to hope they could skate on open air ice. In Holland, they were dreaming about a next Eleven Cities Trek (which they do in Friesland, high up in the country). Also Belgium has many places where can be skated if the ice is thick enough.

Here in Dendermonde, we have the Brusselse Forten. These were part of the old moat next to the walls surrounding the medieval city. Most of it has disappeared in time, but near where I live we still have some water. It's nice to skate there, we often did as kids. But I wouldn't risk it if the ice were only 3 cm (like now). Much too dangerous!

And the weather forecast predicts warmer weather as of tomorrow. So there will be no skating this season.

You can skate in inside rinks of course, but that's not so much fun. It's so much nicer to be in open air, skate for hours and then sit down with a warm chocolate and a piece of cake! My grandma could remember a time when even the river Schelde was completely frozen over and they could skate on it. That was in 1947. And in 1979, during an equally cold winter, my friends and I skated across the frozen Möhnesee in Germany where I was living then. It was a very big lake, near a dam.