The value of seasons

I've been eagerly awaiting the arrival of winter again for a while now. For some weird reason, Swedish winters and I just go together. I love the darkness. Especially in winter. Back in NZ I used to love going grocery shopping at night. Right from a kid. Don't ask me to explain, I'm sure there's a support goup out there somewhere with my name on it. There's something quite exciting about stepping out in the dark. Don't get me wrong, I'm as afraid of real pitch black as any red blooded male. But street lights bouncing off the snow is different. No monsters to be had there. It's already noticeably darker. I'm checking all the time. Right now it's dark from around 5:30pm through until about 7:30am. By the time we hit mid November it's going to be dark for around 20 hours a day. It happens that quickly up here. And I can't wait.

What I really can't wait for, is for this crappy nothing season to be over with. In my excitement for winter, I'd forgotten about the little matter of autumn. Autumn in the north of Sweden is one of the big reasons why I left NZ. Now, that sounds like autumn is an attraction, but in fact it's a near perfect copy of a New Zealand winter. And that, I don't care if I never see again in my life. Snow, I don't mind. Cold, I can cope with. Darkness, I get a weird kick out of. What I can never learn to tolerate is wind and rain. I can live with being cold, but I can't live with being wet. The past fortnight we've had more rain than I think we've had all year. I had 40+ years of living through winters of driving rains and howling winds. I've had enough of that. It's just plain depressing. Autumn has no discernible positive value and, frankly, I think there should be a law against it.

A northern Swedish winter has no rain and bugger all wind. The odd metre or two of snow, and a few nippy mornings. Paradise for a soaking wet Kiwi refugee.