I don’t know about you, but I get the itch as soon as I see the first images of snowfall. Winter sports are something I have always loved. My mother should get a statue of all the ski and snowboard fanatics in The Netherlands. In those days, the mid-seventies, spring holidays did not yet exist in my country.

People had three days off to celebrate the carnival, but it was not a continuous week. That was difficult for my parents because they wanted to rütschen and bet. A week in schuss. My mother then started a correspondence with the Ministry of Education. I don’t think she was the only one, for soon she had it all sorted out, and the annual pilgrimage to the snow was a fact.

I was three years old when I first stood on what were then still short skis. I couldn’t brake with my skies, so I just let myself fall. At that time, there were no bindings that could stop the skis from flying when they fell. They were tied around your legs with strings. And if you fell, they just caught in your neck or the strings came loose, and then your ski popped like a rocket to the valley. That is how you learned to ski on one ski. At that time, I was about fourteen years old, and when it was freezing, the ski instructor gave me a schnapps. That makes your knees loose, was his reasoning. Old school.

For me, the mountains, powder, and freshly groomed slopes are like filling up a car with petrol. I recharge entirely when I’m swinging on forest paths and slopes. Just thinking about it gives me energy.

But building snow caves in Sweden, cross-country skiing, hiking in the snow, driving snowmobiles across lakes, and basically anything that has to do with snow and ice and cold simply makes me ecstatic.

Fortunately, it is possible again this year. I am going to take the first slopes in Bulgaria, near Sofia. Where are you going?

Happy snowy days.