The moving days

As the year moves to an end, things are not really changing much. Corona is still very much with us and it looks as if it's not going to let us out of its grip for a while yet. In fact, last night we heard that the Netherlands will be on lock-down until January 19th. Schools, shops and other places where people might gather are going to be closed.

I had made arrangements to meet up with a friend of mine to do the walk I originally wanted to do last week. I picked her up from home and we drove to the woods together, both wearing face masks. Not liked, but necessary. Once there, we took the masks off, put on our gear and started. At first it was a bit of a boring walk, also because I had already done that part last week, but it soon changed. 

The landscape was much more open, there were larger lakes and there were animal tracks and animal poop. And then we saw the animals themselves: three sheep. As we continued on our walk, we saw a smaller flock as well, but there was one thing missing: the sign we needed to follow. 

In the end we turned around and retraced our steps, adding more kilometers to our walk, but not wanting to just walk wherever. We found the sign again at the place where the lake and the sheep had interrupted our chatting. It wouldn't be the last time either that we were distracted too much by just chatting. Even at the required distance that is fairly easy for us.

After a while we arrived in a small bit of the wood which was mostly made up of holly trees. It was a bit of a search for red berries though, I think the birds had already gotten to most of them, despite us not seeing that many birds around (or hearing them for that matter). Perhaps we were too loud?

Once we cleared the holly trees, we heard bleating in the distance. Not just of a couple of sheep, but of a whole flock. I took out the big lens, we walked around a corner and there they were: dozens and dozens of sheep! We stuck to the path, but we then decided to go across to get closer. That's when the man who tended to the sheep also came closer and started chatting to us.

We asked him the number (300, 350 in summer), the breed (Drents, Schoonebeek, Texel), the feeding rituals (every day during winter) and several other things and he was happy to answer. He called the sheep to come a bit closer, but I think my friend and I scared them a bit, as they would not get too close. In the end we said goodbye and finished our walk. 

Due to the extra distance we had done, we finished on just short 8,4 km. My friend was happy as it was the first time she had done that distance in over two years and I was happy as it is a good distance. The knee will hurt at 5 km or at 8, so might as well do 8!

Back at the car we changed shoes, had the remainder of our lunch, put our face masks back on and then drove home. Another good day. Which will hopefully be followed by more in the coming period as I will be off quite a bit over the next few weeks. Regular work-off and Christmas-off. 

Photos of the bench and of me taken by my friend C.