Hi guys! How are you doing? Last week I’ve been kind of mopey because we wanted to celebrate our six year anniversary properly, but couldn’t find a way to do that. Two year ago we had started a little tradition by going away somewhere to celebrate, but for obvious reasons we could not do that this year.
There are a few hotels that are still open and we did look at them, I actually found myself getting excited about visiting the waddeneilanden in the northern parts of the Netherlands, something that would usually get me as excited as going for a trip to Ikea (i.e. not at all). What weird times we live in!
But we decided against it. Even though we had the opportunity, it still felt weird to go. We are urged to stay indoors and as much as my insides are screaming for some time away, we coulnd’t possibly justify going and taking the risk of getting infected, or possibly infect someone else.
So I wasn’t happy at all this last week. I had been doing great, since I decided not to think too much about what we couldn’t do and instead focus on the good things, for instance, the time I now had to learn a new language, practice some songs on my ukulele, or read hundreds of books. But with our upcoming anniversary, I had to face the truth: we were stuck.
The funny thing is, in times like these, you discover how much beauty there is around you. We couldn’t go to Venice as we did two years ago, or Germany, as we did last year, or even The Ardennes, which we had talked about for this year, but we could go somewhere nearby for the day.
We started the day with a homemade English breakfast (who says you have to visit the United Kingdom to have an English breakfast?) and then packed some lunch, packed our instruments and set out for a nearby park. We planned to take the bus but we missed it, so we walked from bus stop to bus stop to see when another one would arrive. It didn’t, but it didn’t really matter, for we had found another park, one that was closer to our home, one that we had never been to before, but what appeared to be another fairytale like park with little brooks, bridges, baby coots and probably a lot less noise than the park we planned on visiting.
So we had our little picnick, played some music and had a lovely time. All within 3 kilometers from our home.
The lesson learnt here is that there is beauty everywhere. Yes, corona still sucks and I still want to go away, but if we had gone, we never would have discovered this beauty.
Wanderlust Wonderland 