Sweden Blogs - Part 11 - Serious, serious winter weather

I was going to write this post last night. I was going to start with a sentence along the lines of: "while I am writing it is snowing heavily outside. Thick flocks are dancing on the wind - they go up, down, left, right, up again, down again and finally fall to the ground to help build the enormous white blanket of irredescent white that is covering everything in sight. Trees, cars, walls, staircases, they all become one in the snowstorm that has been going on for some 3 days and nights...."

But as it turns out, I write the post tonight instead. So it starts as follows.

While I am writing, the snowing has finally stopped. My house in the Swedish archipelago, tucked between pockets of wood and other villas, is finally no longer creaking from heavy snowfall and storm from the north east. Temperatures have reached some -12 degrees Celcius, a respectable winter temperature for this time of year. Tonight the mercury will drop to -18 degrees Celcius.

When it gets this cold, the fallen snow adopts a certain diamond-like quality, any light that is reflected highlights hundreds of tiny diamonds that live in the white layer that covers everything. When I look outside, I see trees that look surprised, still carrying snow on every branch. I see a world that has come to complete standstill, held, bound, a frosty snapshot of winter 2009.

The statues in my garden look even more stoney than they really are, some snowflocks still clung to the side from the storm. They will remain there until warmer days return.

Beside the roads are piles of snow, still white. At -12 degrees Celcius the cold air penetrates everything immediately, but people stay out longer just to admire in awe.

Right now, there is not much else to think about but this wonderful icy snowlost sample of Scandinavian winter.