Winter Woolies

A bit of a shock this week with the sudden arrival of the first serious sub -20 deg C temperatures for the winter. It seems that the coldest months of the year are becoming January and February now, instead of the Christmas period. That actually ties in with what I had experienced in New Zealand over the past 10 years. Instead of the warmest time being at Christmas, as you would expect, the real heat (such as it was) never really kicked in until the schools went back in early February. Likewise there was more snow in September than there was in June/July. The whole world seems to be a couple of months out of whack.

The 20 deg boundary brings with it a few changes. The horse gets his heavy cover for starters. It's not a lot of fun for whomever has the morning roster at the stables on a cold morning. A 400 gram winter cover must weigh around 20kg. Try throwing one of those nearly 2m up in the air over 7 horses.

I've had my winter coat out for a little while, but now it needs to work. I had bought a Fjäll Räven Eskimo shortly after we arrived into Sweden, and it's stood up well. Pretty much still looks like new, really. I've been very impressed with it. It's a little too warm to wear unless the temperature is around -10 degrees or colder. So I had to also buy a slightly lighter jacket. Especially this winter when it hasn't been so cold, relatively speaking. But the Eskimo is great right now. It's a slightly longer jacket, so all the important bits keep nice and warm. It's also got a lovely and snuggly insulated hood. Jackets hoods are often an afterthought, but this one is great. They aren't cheap, but you do need proper gear that's going to work correctly om man ska bo här uppe.

I've resisted the urge to haul out my thermal boots. They are excellent for warmth, having a supposed insulation against a -25 deg ground temperature. And they are warm, I'll give them that. However, despite having what looks like a great sole, they are terrible for grip. Again, they weren't cheap, so I'm a bit miffed about them. We bought them at the same time as the jacket, I think they are Sorel brand. Anyway, I'm still perservering with my Asics walking shoes which I bought a couple of years ago for 400 SEK. They have done the trick well and I haven't really felt like I was going to slip over. Actually, in the past 2 winters I'm only come a propper once. I was out jogging and slipped on a downhill slope whilst going past the main truck entrance into the town heating plant. The trucks going in and out had packed the snow down virtually to ice. It was like a rink. I didn't see it coming and ended up flat on my back. Not exactly dignified. But apart from that.

I'm a bit of a winter walking thermometer. At -10 deg, I feel my cheeks stiffen up a little. At -15 deg, my nose hairs start to freeze. Feels like you've sniffed up a blowfly. At -18 deg I can feel my eyelashes freezing. Like clockwork

Breathing Easy

As I've written previously, the winter months up here have limited my excercising options somewhat. During the weekdays, it's dark in the evenings, so I don't mind being at the gym. But during the weekends it's great to be able to be outdoors and see something other than the back of another sweaty T shirt. The main thing holding me back, has been the cold. Obviously enough. The other weekend I trotted out for a jog on a lovely Saturday morning when it was -15 deg C outdoors. I didn't think it would be that much of a problem, but it was. Taking in way more air than one normally would when walking around town, I ended up having some unexpected and unwanted breathing problems. First of all, I started to feel my lungs rattling quite a bit while I was running. Irritating, but not disabling. The problem started about an hour after I came home when I started having trouble catching my breath. It continued for probably 2 or 3 days afterwards before everything came back to normal again. Obviously that can't have been very good for me. I knew that there just had to be a solution to this and in the end I found that there were practical alternatives for people who liked to be active outdoors during colder tempertures.

After digging around on-line, I decided to look at at 2 options that are sold in Sweden. The first was a product called Lungplus, which basically looks like a sawn off mouth organ. It is about 5cm long and has a flared end. You place the flared end in your mouth between your teeth and lips, and off you go. The second option for me was called Airtrim, which is a nose/mouth mask with a filter. Like a normal dust filter mask, the Airtrim is held in place by an elastic strap.

Both products operate on a similar principle. When you breathe out, your breath passes through a fine honeycomb filter, warming up the walls of each honeycomb cell on the way out. When you suck in the new cold air, that air passes through the same (but now warm) honeycomb cells, warming the air up before it enters your mouth and lungs. A basic heat exchange system. The claims by the manufacturers are pretty bold. If you breathe in air while running which is minus 10 degrees Celcius cold, it will have warmed up to plus 19 degrees by the time it reaches your face. Bold claims.

Now, I have to say that neither option is particularly flattering to the eye. On one hand you can choose to look like you got half way through eating a hot dog and it got stuck in your mouth and then froze there. Or you can choose to look like a balding, middle aged, overweight Darth Vader. Either way you're likely to scare off the local wildlife and frighten small children. There is a price and availability issue, which made it a bit simpler for me. I suspect that the Airtrim is a superior product. It seems more complete and thorough. However, it costs about 100NZD and wasn't available to buy up here from a store. That was important for me, as I was worried about how comfortable it would actually be to wear. And I still had the option of going to the gym, so this was really a luxury item. The Lungplus could be bought from the local pharmacy, and cost about 30NZD. Much more affordable if it ended up being a "used it once then chucked it away" type purchase. So that made the decision for me.

Come Saturday morning it was a balmy -13 degrees outside. Another perfect day for a morning run in the woods. Another reason for me choosing the Lungplus was that I could quickly pop it into my pocket if I met anyone along the way. As if I didn't look odd enough. That idea disappeared after about 5 minutes, when I no longer cared what people thought. The Lungplus got a good work out. I was a bit worried about the effort of holding it in one's mouth. But I needn't have worried. Once it's tucked behind the lips, it kind of just hangs there. No effort needed. I was also worried about not being able to breathe normally, or get enough air into my lungs. I'm no lightweight, so I do take in quite a bit of air when I'm on the move. Here, I was quite surprised, and rather impressed. Even when running up a reasonably steep hill, when I'm sucking in several litres a second, I found that I was able to breathe just fine and got all the air I needed. So it worked well in that respect. The only downside, and it was a little annoying, was the amount of moisture that dribbled out from the open end of the filter. I found myself taking it out of my mouth and giving it a quick wipe on my trousers probably every 5 minutes or so. I gave it a good hot wash when I got home, so hopefully it'll stay reasonably bug free. While the Airtrim has replacement filters, the Lungplus is all one piece, with no moving or removeable parts. I don't know if that's an advantage or a disadvantage. It did get me to wondering how the full face mask Airtrim deals with the issue of condensation. I might dig further on that.

Of course the big test was how my lungs and airways would stand up to the cold temperature. I was wearing good thermals, so I was pretty confident that my lungs wouldn't be cold from the outside. I have to say that, from the initial one hour work out, the Lungplus came up a winner. Not a sound from my lungs while I was running, and no breathing problems in the 24 hours that followed. Obviously it's going to need a few more field trials, but so far I'm impressed for a cheap, no nonsense, product. I'll have an ask around and see if anyone has an Airtrim that I can borrow. Then we'll be able to benchmark them properly. I'm mostly pleased now about having an alternative to the gym which doesn't destroy my insides. Life finds a way.

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.

Vinter kläder

Well, it's official. The snow has been lying on the ground around here for 100 days. I haven't done the finger counting, but, from my memory, this latest lot started arriving in early December. So the stats are probably right. Apparently the record for the region is 156 days. Not sure why anyone really needs to know that. On the positive side, it hasn't snowed for 2 days now. And today, I think I saw the sun. I think it was the sun, anyway. Even the temperature has come to the party. It hasn't been below about minus 12 deg C all week. If this keeps it I might have to start calling it summer. Now, they've been quite clever here in the middle of town. At least, they've tried to be. Through the central shopping district, the footpath is warmed by underground heating. So that it doesn't get too icy and slippery during the autumn months. It becomes a problem in winter, however. When the snow is falling too quickly to be melted. So it builds up. And that's ok too. Snow is easy enough to walk on. Problem now is that it's become a little warmer out, and much of the snow has been cleared from the roads and footpaths. The snow that's left on the heated footpath is thawing, then freezing into ice overnight. So it's a bit of a skating rink out there. Right where most of the people are. Good intentions though, and I'm not going to knock them for that. It's tough to know what to wear out at the moment. For the past 3 months I've been happily wrapped up in my Fjäll Raven winter coat. God but I love that coat. Cost a bucket load to buy, but it's been my winter best friend. I can actually get around outside with just a T shirt on under that coat. Until it gets below minus 30. Then I wear a long sleeved T shirt under. Anyone moving up here, that's the coat to buy. Accept no substitutes. I've never once been cold in that coat. And it is as soft as. That's my favourite part about it, I reckon. The trick is to back into a seat on the bus, and let the coat melt itself into the corner of the seat. It's like falling back into a bed of feathers. At least, I imagine that's what a bed of feathers would feel like. Even the hood is soft. It's like you're resting back into a couple of soft pillows. If it weren't against God's law, I'd marry that coat. Which brings me to the worst delimma of all. Now that it's a mere minus 10 outside, I'm sweating like a, well, like someone really sweating, inside that coat. But I'm not convinced it's warm enough yet to move to an autumn jacket (jacka). (Can't believe that I have jackets named after seasons. How sad is that). I think I'll sweat it out for another week before making any firm commitment. It's good for my pores. Ditto for footwear also. I've got a great pair of walking boots that have a thermal insulation rating down to minus 25 deg. Never once been cold in those. Problem is that they don't have the best grip around. And tend to glide a bit over the snow on occasions. Something of a design flaw there. So I tend to favour my summer walking shoes with some good fleecy warm socks. A trade off, but then I'm not walking outside for an hour at a time. My toes are just starting to feel a bit cold by the time I walk the 10 minutes from the bus stop to work. Liveable. I've never been a hat person, I've always felt that was a bit trashy. That theory lasted about 5 minutes once autumn rolled in here. I don't open the door these days without my wool hat (mössa) firmly pulled over my ears. Unlike my winter coat and boots, there's nothing really special about my hat. Just a hat which a mate who worked on a NZ fishing trawler gave me a few years back. I probably should thank him some time. A final mention should go to my closest friends, the långkalsonger. Thermal underwear will never feature in the fashion mags. But they are a way of live up here. It's seems to be perfectly acceptable to wander around the house with just your thermals on. Mind you, that possibly explains why we don't get a lot of visitors. My långkalsonger are a little tired now, and I know that their time is near. But, having seen me through my first couple of winters I don't have the heart to tell them that they have become outdated. I mean, what's a few rips and holes between friends ? I'll give them Easter. They deserve that.

The Day After

Well, here I am, still alive. The lying buggers at the Swedish weather office. It was nowhere NEAR -30 deg C yesterday. 20, maybe. But certainly not 30. Mind you, they did get the rest of it pretty well right. If that was my first true arctic blizzard, then I'll be quite happy for it to be my last. I have to confess, that I always wondered what it would be like, to experience a real winter. The last 2 have been relatively tame. In hindsight, I probably should have stuck to wondering. First mistake for the day was in driving to work. I had a few errands to run, but, if ever there was a day to take the bus, yesterday was that day. It was actually ok driving in on the motorway. A couple of dodgy areas where the wind was blasting snow across the road. But manageable. What I didn't know was that the real storm wasn't to arrive for another hour. Being the tight-wad that I am, I don't park inside parking buildings. Not at 10kr an hour. Nope, it's always been the outdoor parking place for me. 3kr an hour I can live with. Yesterday, again in hindsight, it wasn't my smartest decision. By the time I got back to the trusty Volvo at 4pm, I had to dig around in the snow drift to find the door handle. I kid you not. Now, there's a reason why everyone in Sweden owns a Volvo. And it's not for their looks. It's because they work. No matter what, they go. And keep on going. I've owned 4 wheel drive Subarus, and a Landrover. So I was pretty skeptical about the ability of a simple front wheel drive car in a climate like this. But this car starts in a flash and goes exactly where you point it. Every time. Man, I was glad of it yesterday. As I crawled through town, I passed a guy stopped in the middle of a major intersection. He was lying in the snow, frantically trying to dig his Mercedes Benz out of the snow. "Buy a Volvo", I muttered smuggly. Sure, you instantly age 20 years on the inside, the moment you sit in a Volvo. But when you're driving up the motorway at night, through 30cm deep snow, at 90kph, it's blowing and snowing like buggery outside, and it's 22 degrees inside the car, who gives a shit. It probably deserves a bath this weekend, I reckon.

Global Warming

The weather forecast for tomorrow is: -30 degrees C 90kph winds 40-50cm snow You know it's not going to be a lot of fun when the northern office of the Swedish Road Administration, who doesn't stop for anyone, advises people not to drive. Remind me again. Why am I not on a tropical beach somewhere ?

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 ?

Winter wonderland

The first snow arrived the other day. About frickin time. Did I just say that ? I guess I've been here too long when I miss the snow. But it's all a matter of perspectives, I think. For the last few weeks it's been a good old fashion New Zealand winter. Cold, wet, and generally yucky. Nothing to write home about. Problem being is that it's about 10 degrees colder than in NZ. So that means ice. Every frickin where. Now, I don't know if there exists some kind of ice walking gene. But, if there is, it's clearly skipped a generation. We've all seen those cutesy videos of ducks slipping and sliding their way across the ice. It's a dream of mine to be that well co-ordinated. Nope, with me, I'm resigned to spending most of my autumn outdoor winter time steering upwards at the stars, with one leg wrapped around the back of my neck. "You can see that I can't walk on ice, stop messing with me already !!" Which is turn explains a few things about Swedes. They all look exactly the same. In Sweden. BUT, take one of those northern Swedes out of Sweden, and watch them walk. Northern Swedes walk everywhere like they are ankle deep in cow poo. Funniest thing that you every saw. Until you happen to be in the north of Sweden come the annual ice age. Then it's the cleverest thing that you ever saw. I've tried, God knows I've tried. I guess that I'm just not an ice guy. Actually, I recall my ex wife saying something very similar. Snow, snow I can do. Snow sits on the ice. It doesn't move. Usually. Snow is kind. Snow knows my limitations. Snow understands. I hope it snows tonight. Even if it ruins the moment of unbridled hilarity exhibited by my colleagues at the bus stop. I'm convinced they are all arriving early now. Just to see my duck arse slide across the road. I hate them.