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My only favourite radiostation seems to be in financial problems. Really a pity, because they broadcast a really wide range of great jazz music. It’s for me a very good relaxation radio station. About a year ago I said that Arrow Jazz FM would be the only radiostation where I’d pay money for their good music, but you couldn’t donate money to them at that moment. A few weeks ago however it was in the news that Arrow Jazz FM has financial problems and perhaps would disappear. You can donate money and if you pay more than 15 euros you get a free Arrow Jazz FM CD. So I immediately transferred some money to them in the hope that it makes a little differerence and that at least the radiostation won’t disappear. In the meanwhile I am waiting for my CD, which I haven’t received yet …

Since last year we are keeping an eye on houses nearby Utrecht and we are not the only ones. Which makes it difficult to find a house which is an improvement on what we currently have and which is also nicely situated. In the price range we are searching you actually get the same as we already have now, only difference is that it’s then centrally heated and it has (sometimes) isolated glass and a garden. But usually the total space of the house doesn’t differ that much compared to what we have now. Actually, the more houses we see, the more we realize that our rented house isn’t that bad at all, if you see what neighbourhood we are living in at the moment. Not that we want to stay here for years, but we are not in a big hurry to pay a lot of money and actually getting not that much improvement. So we can save money in the meantime.

But anyway, last week we looked in De Bilt and visited a nice house together with a realtor, the house is situated in a nice neighbourhood, in front of a small park, nice trees in the garden. The realtor already suggested to chop a tree in the garden, but we were actually coming there because of the trees. The house was built in a slightly older style and looked nice on the internet. From the outside it indeed still looked nice, but inside it looked smaller compared to what we have now, while it should be 20m2 bigger. There were some things which had to be upgraded, like electricity, new stairs, partly new windows, new ceilings etc. Not really a big problem, but the house was already relatively expensive. We could pay that, but compared to what we have now we didn’t find it a real improvement. If the price drops 10-15% (it already dropped the last few months) then it really becomes interesting.

Anyway, here are some pictures of the house I made in Sketchup. Click on the thumbnails to see the larger version.

Today I did an ice skating tour together with Nina’s father and sister on the Vechtplassen.The weather was perfect (again), it was freezing about two or three degrees Celcius and there was little wind, and a clear sky with the sun shining. The ice itself was quite good, but there were many snowy spots on it, which slow you down very often. But when we were heading back and had the wind in our back it went very smooth, that’s the way it always should be. On the left side you can see the medal I got for the twenty kilometers I ice skated. A nice souvenir to remember the winter of 2009, because I think it will be another five or ten years before such a winter happens again. You can watch some videos I made and put on Youtube.

Since it started freezing two weeks ago, the moment came closer that it was possible to skate on real ice. The last time I skated on ice was already a few years ago and the skates didn’t fit me anymore. So last weekend I bought a new pair of ice skates (Combi I) from the brand Viking. A winter like we have now happens once every ten year I think, although every two or three year there are at maximum one or two days you can ice skate, but then it’s over. I already skated on our local schoolyard to test my ice skates and that went smoothly. Today was the big(ger) day and I skated on a lake nearby Zuidland, with really perfect circumstances. All trees had frost on them – nice ambiance – and there was no wind and the sun was shining, and last but not least, the ice was also very good. I measured the length of one round with my mobile GPS application (Nokia Sports Tracker) and it was exactly 1 kilometer. Anyway, it’s nice to see that when you are on the ice, almost everyone starts a talk with each other and everybody looks so happy that they can finally skate again after many years. It’s a pity that we don’t have that many good winters in the Netherlands.

Anyway, you can take a look at pictures I made with my mobile phone – I had no space left over to carry my semi-professional camera – which look actually quite good. And I also uploaded some live action footage to Youtube: