We’re in a hard lockdown again – it looked to my hopeful eye two weeks ago that the numbers in The Netherlands were under control, but over the last few days they’ve risen, hence the lockdown. Everything is closed, aside from the “essentials” such as supermarkets, chemists and takeaway restaurants (cannabis lovers can still get their fix). The oliebollen stands…

There are obviously so many things I could not have predicted I’d feel when we came to live in The Netherlands. Add a pandemic to the mix, and things were even more unexpected and unthought of. You can read the comments on the expat Facebook groups, and try to remember what friends who emigrated years prior had said about their…

Our central heating is being turned up every few weeks (my handiwork), I have thermal vests and socks, I’m taking vitamin D, and this morning we bought special lightbulbs for our work desks to give us some sunny benefits, without the sun. I was always nervous about my first winter here, more for the dark mornings and late afternoons than…