The Netherlands in Winter
Talking of Snow and Ice,
Skating, Sledding and Fun.
Winter in the Netherlands, where in my youth
Winters were very cold and everyone’s thoughts turned to
Skating on canals and rivers, something rarely witnessed now:
Greylag geese resting on floodplains of river IJssel, the only river that does not flow into the North Sea but into the IJsselmeer instead. The floodplains are a haven for wildlife, both in summer and winter.
Below:
Scenes in my beautiful and unique country: the Netherlands,
during an exceptionally cold and snowy winter a few years ago.
Please select thumbnail and then move carousel on with arrows.
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- Learner on Ice
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- Deep in thought
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- Lone Skater
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- An exceptional winter
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- The Ultimate Marathon
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- Skate into the night
Paula Graham 
Geweldig!
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Dank je wel!
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Wonderful photographs Paula capturing the essence of winter on the ice in such a beautiful part of the Netherlands
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Beautiful images. Yes, the memories of childhood wintertime… Much more winter and much more snow, no? By the way are the photos of the windmills captured at Kinderdijk?
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Indeed, Otto , Kinderdijk is the place, a World Heritage site, near Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Wonderful place at all times of day and year, but of course , conditions like above , with Global warming’ are getting rare… Conditions for skating have to be ‘just right’, too much snow is dangerous as you cannot see the bad ice..and getting underneath the ice is often fatal. Dutch hearts beat faster and faster when it looks as if conditions might come right again for outdoor, real skating. Although I live in the UK, my family in Holland has been instructed to make me drop everything and come over when things are happening!!
Thank you , Otto , for your kind remarks.
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Fun to see Kinderdijk in wintertime. I have been there quite a few times since my sister lives in Krimpen just across the river Leek.
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Talking of snow and ice, thank you for bringing this white winter to us who are very cold but don’t see any snow yet 🙂 So beautiful…
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I like the top photo, Paula. The format is just right, and I like the way the light coming up from the snow highlights the birds’ white underparts – but I’m an ex-birder so I’m biased! If it were me (and it isn’t), I would probably have taken out that prominent, tall fence post or sign just below the centre, as it distracts me from the geese, it provides too much of a focus for my eyes.
And the other pictures – once again, so different from anything you’ve done previously – are delightful. Overall, the colours are so vibrant against the snow. The chair in Learner On Ice is wonderful, and the reeds in Lone Skater are a great (if very subtle) counterpoint to the skater. And the Dutch landscape in Skate Into The Night is just wonderful – it could be a painting. Adrian
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Thank you Adrian…you eagle eyed man! I thought about that sign, but decided to leave it in as it is a marker in the river IJssel…just beyond the fence and it shows that the birds are on the floodplain of aforementioned river. Thousands of geese gather there for safety..sadly, they are since last year being culled, the farmer felt that there were too many taken a few mouthfulls of their precious grass.
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Love these. Particularly the lone skater, monochrome except for the jacket, and with the grass in the foreground.
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