Stockholm i Snön

I only intended to take a few photos of Wintery weather but I love snow and I love taking photos, so of course I ended up with more than I could fit into one of my usual monthly roundups. These were all taken during the first half of January.

This was taken on the night we looked out of the window and saw heavy snow falling. We threw on our coats and walked as high as we could go. I always feel like we’re on the moon up here. Rock is the only thing visible in this direction until you reach the mast, then you have this amazing view over the city…

Don’t let the photo fool you though, the wind was bitterly cold and seemed to blow snow horizonally in all directions — we only lasted about 5 minutes.

Transporting kids around the city on sledges seems to be the done thing. What a great way to move from place to place! I might see if Scott fancies pulling me along next year.

I could hear a strange scraping noise outside one morning. Men in harnesses were scurring across an apartment roof and shovelling snow away. After excitedly mentioning it to our friends, it turns out this is a totally normal occurance in Sweden.

Building owners call a special roof clearing service once the snow reaches ~6 inches and they shovel it off to prevent snow and ice avalanches (probably reduces weight too). Workers on the ground call up to send stop signals when people are underneath and start again once they’ve passed. We even saw them directing traffic while working on a building overlooking a busier road. I think it’ll be a few years before the novelty of this wears off.

The day we ventured out for a walk in -10c. The grey fog heading towards us was actually a wall of snow. We scuttled home pretty quickly.

This park was full of kids in body suits on sledges. Parents stood and chatted while the kids expelled all their energy in the snow. Some were even hurtling themselves down slopes on their bums or fronts. It was happy chaos. We saw a patch of blood on the snow though; it didn’t end well for everyone.

I thought we’d seen the last of the snow this month but the mega load arrived this week. Hooray! Good job we’ve finally found our snow legs.