When days get shorter and nights colder

Dear Bloggers,

Summer has ebbed away, leaving her ghosts flirting with memories, occasional warm episodes all too soon laid to rest by gales ripping up the Dutch coastline. Even though the temperatures are to high for the time of the year. 

It is hard to predict the weather from one day to the next, but the night cannot lie, nor masquerade as if it was still September with flat dark blue seas and smooth sailings. Although the evenings are getting chilly and I start up my wood fire and make it cosy with some candlelight.

It reminds me of my youth in the little village of Langweer were the summertime is hard work for a lot and at the end of October winter’s slumber will soon begin again. Slowly but surely the nights are drawing in…

The past few weeks have presented a chance for solving the more pressing physical problems that inevitably are the result from running a rough sailor's life. This is perhaps the biggest challenge for those who choose this life and how blissful though it may be, it can be hard bloody work at times, a precarious balance of improvisation and loads of stressful situations. 

All the determination to carry on come what may, seems to have seeped up into a nightmare more rarefied realms and how sweet the reply! They have given me with a series of special people who have helped me do battle with all things physical. And yes I battled my way out and started a new chapter in my life.

Finally, the solution to my oldest headache… the twisted mind is my saviour as the situation at home is pretty challenging. Despite my protests, they refused to take action and it knocked out my spouse fully all for a fine job, leaving me speechless with frustration. My wife is the best thing that has happened in my life. She did not hold me back and I explored a lot of challenging situations in my days at sea. I love her too bits and she is absolutely all worth it. Okay some days are pretty awkward and hectic. I could have had a boring life.

My life is like being on an old vessel it is getting harder and harder to find spare parts for it and the domestic items that make life a little more bearable as these winter nights draw in. What would I do without these dark and cold nights? It is almost impossible to live here without some transportation. Northern region of the Netherlands is a car culture, for sure, with miles between places. In the bigger places you have buses running.

The magic is still there but it is sometimes hard to make everything happen. So once again, I would like to thank you all so much for your hospitality and friendship. And I would like to thank everyone that gave us hand or even a listening ear. My gratitude is immense.

And so ends this short update from the far North. You are all aware that most of my posts come during the months when I am the happiest during the summertime; however, through the winter months, an occasional update will pop up every month, but it is a time-consuming process writing a blog and quite invasive of one’s inner peace at times. 

I have oft times considered terminating it, but then all of a sudden a special message and the new people that I've met, have kept this old sailor cruising on, and that it will do, until lack of interest confines it to memory, after all: everything in life will pass....

The Old Sailor,