The Dutch cabinet is consider extending the curfew to 2 March. The curfew runs from 21:00 to 04:30 every night. See also: Outgoing Dutch Cabinet says it will seek curfew extension through March 2 from nltimes.nl. That would be an extension of 3 weeks and bring the measure into line with other measures that are currently in place until (at least) 2 March.
I forgot to post this yesterday but here are some pictures from regio15.nl (in Dutch) of what The Hague looked like under a thin layer of fresh snow on late Saturday into early Sunday morning. We got some more after that, of course.
Skating on the canals? Amsterdam take steps to accelerate ice formation from nltimes.nl. Amsterdam and other Dutch cities have introduced a temporary ban on boating within canals to help stimulate ice growth so that the chances of skating on natural ice are higher.
Van Ark [the minister of Sports] to consider allowing ‘corona safe’ competitions on natural ice from dutchnews.nl. The Dutch government is in a very difficult position at the moment. Dutchies are very fanatic about being able to hold an Elfstedentocht (11 city skating competition, English Wikipedia) at the first possibility of natural ice being thick enough. An Elfstedentocht had already been ruled out late last year due to corona, but now that we are in a situation where we will have at least a week of ice, everyone is thinking about it again. A majority of the Dutch cabinet is for it (article from ad.nl in Dutch), with limited or no public. However it does seem like a bit of a double standard when other things are being cancelled. On the other hand, the last Elfstedentocht was in 1997 due to climate change, so…
And finally, a bit of crazy news: Politie vindt onderkoelde man die in vrieskou van Gouda naar Weesp liep from omroepeest.nl in Dutch. In summary, the trains were not running this weekend so a man decided to walk from Gouda to Weesp (about 54 km or 33 miles) in the evening during the snowstorm. He actually almost made it to Weesp before he called his mom and said he was in trouble. The connection was then lost, so his mom called the police. They finally found him using a police helicopter. He was found not far outside of Weesp, laying on a bike path, suffering from hypothermia of course. But the story ends well: after some care he was reunited with his family. Sounds like he wasn’t fined for breaking curfew, either….
(The Hague has a herd of Scottish Highland cows in Westduinpark, or West Dune Park.)
Life in the Hague 