February this year… looked more like some weird hybrid between Spring and Autumn. That’s what climate change does here. Let’s have a look at what I’ve been up to…

The weather, which featured a lot of wind and waves of warmer weather, made hike planning tricky. The snow was gone from all but the highest peaks, which made the lower and middle-height trails muddy and the higher peaks covered by half-melted snow that was tiring to walk. I decided to stick to the lowlands, hoping that they wouldn’t be as muddy if the snow was gone longer.

That was only partially the case. Also, the weather was often windy. It bounced a bit up and down when it came to temperature, but stayed well above freezing. Rain showers were also frequent throughout the month. Despite all of that, I managed to go on at least a light hike on all four weekends (as usual, details to come later in a separate post).

Mid-month, spring has made its mark on the land here in the lowlands, with snowdrops and some other plants sprouting in gardens, parks, and even around the apartment buildings.

I have, with mixed success, made more time for reading, finishing the book I started to read in late January, and reading another one later in the month.

I’ve also been thinking about the best strategy to get back in writing – the few edits I made back in January reminded me that my long break led to me struggling to remember some parts of the story well enough – or mixing elements from various drafts – so I might need to put some aside for a full read-through before I resume editing.

The warmer end of the month had me considering going rollerblading on the 29th, but I was still a bit stiff from a vaccine and the misty weather kept the track wet, I had to scrap that plan.

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So, that’s a quick summary of the shortest month in the year. It was a bit more optimistic than January, and I hope that March will be even better – though I also know it’ll be busy as that’s the month we hand in suggestions for next year’s club hikes. So I know I’ll set one day aside to go through my notes and come up with some ideas to submit.

Here’s wishing a good month to you.