A new year, a new series of silly faces and stories from up north, but of course not without wishing you the very best for 2018! I hope that this brand new year can become one filled with new adventures, beautiful memories, and excellent health. I also want to thank you for stopping by and reading this blog (and Facebook and Instagram) and for your messages – it is highly appreciated! So a big thank-you and a big sloppy kiss from Ravasz ?

Things might get difficult for us the coming weeks. Or months, I don’t know. In 2 weeks Ravasz has a new checkup and the vet will check his blood again to see if the cancer is still under control. I admit I’m afraid. Not because he is not doing well right now, but probably because it is going so well now. He goes comes along on 1h to 1,5h hikes and still runs up the hills much faster than we do. While the 2 youngest are already sleeping, he is still tirelessly begging when we cook or eat something (I admit, he can clean every soup bowl and always gets something). The only things that get harder are staying warm (so he always wears a sweater or jacket outside) and jump in the car or on a narrow bench. He still loves practicing tricks, absolutely wants to walk and is cunning enough to wait so that he can dig up a popsicle behind our back! (frozen horse poo). In the morning he prefers to sleep looooong and then I just lie there with him and hugging him while I work in bed.
But, yes, he’s technically out of days and although I did not think he would be there this summer or in the fall, every day we get closer to that farewell. I prefer not to think about it, but the thought is haunting me. Especially because in 2 days it is also a year ago that we had to say goodbye to Ziggy.
But while I’m writing this at my desk, Ravasz is lying next to me curled up in a little ball with his paw over his nose. And he snores softly. So sweet.

The past few days we made the big jump HOPPA! from 2017 to 2018. But the real, cold winter did not break through yet. At the beginning of last week, it first started thawing and then transforming everything (!) Into a mirror-like world. I slithered all over and on one walk I just returned home because it was hopeless. But I could enjoy some rare moment where the sun pierced through the heavy white clouds because, since Thursday, December decided that we were out of sunlight for 2017.

And it might sound a little crazy, but when this weekend reached the bottom of lightless days with a stubborn fog, I was as happy as a child. MIST! Joehoeeee! With such a grim atmosphere as if we were living in a Scandinavian crime series, we decided to go on a road trip to a ghost village- but we did not quite know where it was. (Funny detail: I had once seen an interesting house there but we were advised by friends not to buy it.) We stopped at a random side road to go for a walk with the dogs and they zoomed through the snow- around the trees- hiding- catching- and returning for some cookies. The forest seemed empty. I don’t even know how long it was since we saw a living soul. But the doggies couldn’t care less about that and just enjoyed the beautiful winter wonderland.

The darkness was creeping in before we reached the village because it was a lot further in the woods than we remembered. In the back of the car, the two ladies were snoozing but Ravasz watched through the front window with his head on Joeri’s shoulder (and tickling Joeri with his whiskers) because he certainly doesn’t want to miss anything.  The fresh snow creaked under the car and except for the route that we followed towards the ghost village, there was no other path that was cleaned.

Meanwhile, the fog became thicker and thicker, but we suddenly recognized the entrance of the town. A fence, the lake, the house that was once for sale. To our great surprise, there was one house where the light was shining through festive Christmas stars in the windows. Life! Humans! In the kitchen, we even saw some movement. But that was the only place. Furthermore, everything was quiet and covered with a thick blanket of snow and cold mist. We decided to set the GPS back home since it was getting too dark to look for the other lake. A very optimistic GPS tried to convince us to try some small paths but we would only get through those with a super truck. So no way we would venture there! Nobody would find us if we get stuck in the snow. We drove a bit further and passed by a few lonely holiday homes in the forest. And then suddenly there was a house with lights and on the street, a father was playing with his son on a gigantic mountain of snow. They waved at us and smiled as if they had not seen a human being in years, and I can imagine that you get that feeling there. We happily waved back and were soon swallowed again by the fog. When it gets dark here, I usually have a dip so I was a little snoozing and staring at the mist when Joeri suddenly made a sound of surprise. I immediately saw what he saw. Someone stood at the edge of the forest, about 2 meters from the road. Silent. Without moving.
When we approached we saw that it was a woman with a big shotgun.

New Year’s Eve and the stubborn mist was still there while we listened to ‘Studio Brussels’ (Belgian radio)  Tijdloze 100 (top 100 music of all times).It was almost surreal to hear Belgian radio and especially when we heard the news. Traffic jams and rain and warnings for fireworks. I felt like I came from another planet. The past week we thought it was busy here when we had to look for a parking spot at the Ikea. Or when people were walking in the street in the evening. Or when we had 1 car in front of us in the supermarket. The hundreds of kilometers of traffic jams are not our reality at this moment.

And then we got ready for our annual ‘date’ with Michael Van Peel (Belgian comedian) and we got catapulted back to Belgium. TRaffic jams, politicians, city life,…While we were laughing, I wondered what the Swedes would think if they could understand it. The average Swede here gets annoyed when he has 3 cars in front of him at a crossroad so I think they can not imagine a Belgian morning. (it could take me a few minutes to get off my driveway for example)

Even when we were back in Belgium after only a few months of absence, I found myself staring at the crowds. As if I was standing still and the world around me was on fast forward. Everything was fast. At the cash desk ou purchases almost flew by, people do everything in a hurry (I quickly get the fries, let me quickly get some milk), if you don’t rush through traffic you get angry honks and when we went for a walk on the ‘country roads’ we had to watch out for trucks and cars in a hurry that didn’t even slowed down a bit.
“WTF …… .. is …… .. this ……….!” Was the only thing that we could utter after a walk on the ‘quiet’ country roads of Antwerp.

Do we live in a utopia? No, not at all. Because of our limited knowledge of Swedish, there are of course many news items that we do not fully understand. As with every country, there are pros and cons, problems and half-hearted solutions. Only in daily life, we don’t notice it as much because we are not constantly annoyed by the absence of personal space.

Now Joeri had a few days off, I really wanted to show him the ski route to a cabin where I stayed with the doggies last year. On foot of course, because I am still trying to convince Joeri that skiing can be a fun activity. We made sandwiches and tea to take along and went looking for that one path. Because of the absence of street names, I only knew how many minutes it was since the last exit. A bit of guessing makes it more fun, right? 🙂

Lots of fog but we got a lot of fresh snow too:

And there we go! That’s us and the 3 ants are the dogs.

This is what you get if you want to capture the family hike and nobody is cooperating:

On our New Year’s route, we spotted these fresh tracks and the doggies almost couldn’t keep up with their busy noses! My first idea was: wild boar. But then I was in doubt. Could it be a moose after all? A little further we found another track with the small version next to it. I let the doggies bark and we made a lot of noise like the Vikings were back!

I asked a few people about the tracks afterward and the opinions are 50/50. Some think wild boar, the others think moose. It might be my first wild boar tracks… Despite the beautiful walk, I’m not sure if I will choose this route again. I would rather not meet that wild boar.

Did you make New Year’s resolutions? I don’t do new years resolutions as there isn’t much I want to change but of course, there are a lot of plans waiting to be executed. With Ravasz it’s difficult to plan trips or appointment abroad but I do have exciting collaborations, a new zine and new items for the Etsy shop on the menu for 2018.

In case you missed it, last week I shared a mini-blog about the paw-wax that I made for the doggies and a photo-blog of our visit to the coast in The Netherlands in November. And last but not least the publication of my article in a Norwegian magazine.

Voila, that’s it for this moody Tuesday.

PS: Instagram told me which 9 photos were the most popular last year, can you spot your favorite?