The family lives in Rosmalen, with their two daughters aged 6 and 11. “We live in a courtyard, with a nice playground in front of the door.”
They don’t have a huge garden, but that doesn’t matter. They had already built an ice rink in their garden once, Lydia says. “In 2021, during the coronavirus period, it also froze a little. We didn’t know if we could skate everywhere, so we wanted to try something ourselves. Then we watched some videos on the Internet and created the ice rink.”
Last Saturday, when Niels looked at the weather forecast, he said to Lydia: “It’s going to be very cold, shall we go again?”
Started on Sunday
They had to work on Sunday. “We started by making a raised wall, just like you need for a swimming pool. Last time there was snow, so we moved it to the side and made a hill. Now we took a beam and made a kind of box .”
Then they spread a waterproof tarpaulin over it, which they fixed with the beam. “Then we let the water flow layer by layer. We refilled it every hour with a watering can or a water bottle. We left a little more water overnight. We started on Sunday and on Monday we had a track of skating.”
“For our children”
The ice rink measures four by five metres. “It’s really for our kids. They think it’s great and they really enjoy it. Our daughter learned to skate when she was three. Now she’s six and she does stunts.”
Cold, colder, colder
This morning the measuring station in Twente recorded -9.8 degrees. This made it the coldest place in the Netherlands. In the next few hours the mercury will rise slightly above zero.
In this article you can read today’s minimum temperature by measuring station. Other cold places in the country were Woensdrecht (-9.4), Gilze Rijen (-9.3) and Arnhem (-9.1). The least cold weather was in Den Helder (-3.6).
According to Buienradar the end of sunny and cold weather is now in sight. Clouds are entering our country from the north.
Lydia and Niels prefer to skate on a slightly larger rink. Yesterday they went to a nearby ice skating rink. “When I get home and start cooking, the kids go to the ice rink at home.”
They weren’t the only ones who went skating yesterday. People hung out on the Ryptsjerksterpolder in Friesland, as you can see in the video below:
According to Lydia, anyone can do it, like a skating rink. A large garden is not necessary. “Four out of four is already good.” You also don’t have to be close at hand. “You have to be a little crazy to want to do it. And you have to want to go out every hour with a bottle of water to fill.”
The family will have fun while they can. They themselves think that it will still work tomorrow and Saturday. After that? “Then we have a pool of water in the yard. Luckily, in our neighborhood we have a nice system through which the water drains. Then it stays wet for a while. At some point last time we got tired of it, then we boiled it and threw water on it.”
Do you also want to skate, but are you curious to know the most beautiful places and where the ice is thick? You can read it in this article.
2024-01-11 09:29:05
#Crazy #Niels #Lydia #ice #rink #backyard