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.

You know you've been here too long when...

I caught myself having a conversation with a workmate about the weather today. Not so unusual. Until I realised that I was knowingly agreeing with his sentiments about how nice it was, now that it was warmer. It is still minus frickin 16 degrees C, fella !! I've lived here too long when minus 16 can be viewed in any way as an improvement, over anything. It's now been snowing for 2 months and two weeks.

Body Language

They reckon that's your body is a temple. If that's the case, then I think my congregation need to start fund raising for a new roof. What I do know is that I am a walking weather station. As I've been reminded of over the past week as winter has closed in. Here's how it works for me. When the temperature hits EXACTLY -15 deg C, the hairs inside my nose start to freeze. I wasn't used to this during the first winter. The first day it happened I thought that something had flown up my nose and had gotten stuck there. I spent several days blowing my nose every time I went out, hoping to dislodge whatever gastly creature it was. It was only when I realised the thing wasn't there when I was inside, that I made the connection. I'm a bit slow that way. When the temperature gets below -18 deg C (18 itself is ok), my eyelashes start to freeze. Well, technically it's my breath that's freezing on my eyelashes. Have you ever tried blinking with rigid eyelashes ? Not as much fun as you think it's going to be. I was a bit worried at first that they might snap off if I wasn't careful, and I'd go through the rest of my life doing a very passable impression of a bullfrog. But no such worries. Once we get below -20 deg C, my ears will last about 2 minutes before screaming out in protest. I've never really been a hat person. Now I am. I'm also a thermal underwear person. I'm a thermal sock person. I understand the concept of dressing in layers. I buy shoes according to their thermal insulation rating. In my Fjäll Raven winter jacket, I've lost the ability to bend at the waist, or to rotate my head more than about 10 degrees from side to side. It's currently +24 degrees inside, and -24 degrees outside. Why the hell am I not on a beach somewhere ?