The latest batch of slightly autumnal weather bought on a small bout of home-sickness for Amsterdam. The warm orange glow of cafe lights in the slow-setting dusk as your rode home, the first release of bok beers for the year, the rush of warmth on entering a cafe from the damp air outside.

And then I read this, a post I wrote only one month into my fourth Dutch autumn.

One thing I will NEVER get used to is the utterly-soul-destroying-greyness of winter in this part of the world. I don’t suffer from SADD so much as UFM (Utterley Fucking Miserable). Its ‘the darkness’ Shauny was writing about combined with a limp greyish light that will hang around for oh, six months or so. The sky hangs down around your ears and its oh so damp and grey.

My only glimmer of hope is a nice cold winter with lots of sub-zero temperatures. THEN we get blue skies, sun and dry air!

This morning I took the Flipster to the creche in the dark and rain, and tonight I’ll pick him up in the dark and rain. Despite my enormous investment in mega-wattage for the living room, I’m sitting here in the gloom watching my spirits sink faster than the Titanic. They’ll bob up again sometime in May 2005. Until then expect MISERY (interspersed with brief interludes of happiness from Istanbul, the French Alps etc).

I think thats pretty much cured me of any amsterdam-sickness for now!