Picnicking at a safe distance: here’s how to do it!
The sun is shining, the birds are singing and the flowers are starting to bloom again. Oh, what a shame; you can’t enjoy any of it because you have to stay home. But no worries, you don’t have to miss the park during corona. Picnicking at home is much more fun.
Stay home
The fact that the parks remain overcrowded is a mystery to me. Apparently, despite repeated and increasingly urgent calls (yes you, you know who I mean), many people think corona is just a little flu and that it won’t get that serious.
Maybe you don’t think this, but you do find it difficult to relax indoors. Then I’ll help you—even though I’m no homebody either, but hey, you learn as you go, right? So, here you go: three popular spots that you can also visit from home, with a well-stocked picnic basket at hand.
Cherry blossoms at home
Amsterdamse Bos, Westerpark—everywhere, the beautiful purplish-blue treetops can be admired again. And indeed, it’s a beautiful sight. But the trees will still be there in spring 2021, so stay home and enjoy yourself. Here’s what you need to do:
- Get crafting! Have purple, blue and pink crepe paper at home? Make little balls out of it. Have children? Put them to work; it gives them something to do, too.
- Stick the hundreds of little balls to your living-room ceiling.
- Put down a blanket.
- Retreat to the kitchen and fill your thermos with lavender tea, then get started on these delicious elderflower bakes. In the mood for savory snacks instead of sweet? Keep it Japanese, like the cherry blossoms, and make sushi!
- Unpack everything on your blanket and enjoy the cherry blossoms stuck to your ceiling. Perfect for people with hay fever, because ha, you won’t suffer from it now!
The beach at home
The beaches of Zandvoort and Scheveningen were busy again this weekend. Because, well, staying indoors is hard. Let’s go enjoy some fresh air on the beach with a thousand other people. No, let’s not. A beach day at home is the new night out, and you can make it work like this:
- Put down a blanket in your living room, right in front of your TV. Still have a bag of sand in the storage room? Great, scatter it around. Set up your fan as well.
- At the beach, you want to keep it simple: a baguette, garlic butter, hummus. Obviously liquid enough for dipping; spreading with cutlery is already too much effort and increases the chance of spreading sand on your sandwich. And let’s not forget: rosé! An added bonus: at home, you don’t have to use those dirty plastic cups, but real wine glasses, which make your wine taste much better.
- Here we go! Play this YouTube video on your television and enjoy the sunset. Turn the fan to its highest setting so your hair blows into your eyes and you can’t see any of the sunset. Open your wine and enjoy it, because due to corona we don’t know how long we’ll be able to enjoy rosé.
The park at home
The park is by far the most popular picnic location, even during corona. Vondelpark is still pleasantly busy, and with a few more degrees, the picnic baskets and barbecues will probably appear again. But hold on! Not on my watch. And not on yours either, with these handy ground rules:
- Picnickers always go all out in the park. Coolers, barbecues, parasols—everything gets lugged to a patch of grass nearby. Lovely: at home, you don’t have to carry anything. BBQ in the garden? Fire it up! No BBQ? Get out the grill pan!
- Make delicious couscous and potato salad; pasta salads always go down well, and grill some merguez sausages or throw chicken drumsticks into the pan. Park picnics always involve a long sit-down. Despite the cooler you lug along, the wine and beer are often lukewarm after a few hours in the sun. But quarantine picnics are great. The refrigerator is simply within a 10-meter radius.
- Turn the heating up nice and high so it feels like a warm spring day. Get out the plastic plates and cutlery. Bring a badminton set and a game of Kubb, and enjoy your picnic in the park!
- Unlike real park picnics. You don’t have to hold back on the drinks! Drink wine, homemade iced tea and sparkling water until you drop: the days of awkwardly peeing in the bushes are over! There’s always a clean toilet nearby!
If it still isn’t clear by now: stay home, ladies and gentlemen. There are plenty of fun options.
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