Solid Block of Ise

I like living in the northern part of Sweden for a variety of reasons.

Among those are:

I grew up in this climate, and this is where I feel at home.
I like the surroundings.
I like most of the people who live here.
Most of my friends live within not too large a distance.
My parents live only a few hours trip away.
Etc etc etc.

But one of the major reasons I live in what people who’ve never been here imagine is an arctic wasteland is the winters. We usually get proper winters up here, and my childhood was filled with nothing but snowy, white christmases. Winter was a period of intense cold, I admit, but it was also a season of intense human warmth. When we ventured outside it was to go bobsledding or having snowball-wars.

For the last two winters there hasn’t been a proper winter. Even though Umeå is fairly high up on our globe the last two winters have been absolutely abysmal. Just a few days ago we celebrated christmas, and there was virtually no snow outside. What resemblance of winter existed was provided by frozen bits of water that just a few days earlier had been melting snow. The grey remnants of lawns accentuated this lack of wintery-ness.

I’m really tired of this. I have yet to subscribe to the most hysterical of hand-waving environmentals who claim the earth is dying, but something seems to be very wrong here. Yeah, I’m not so ignorant that I don’t know that we’re FUBARing our environment on a daily basis, but I take all the hysterical warnings with a fair bit of salt. I know that compared to a lot of people my own fossil-fuel footprint is virtually non-existent (I don’t own/drive a car, for example) but I do say that there’s something wrong when winters that used to be covered in a meter or more of snow now is covered in… well… no snow at all.

I’m tired of seeing snow falling, and knowing that a few hours later it’s just going to melt into slosh that’ll make my feet wet when I take the dog for a walk. I’m tired of knowing that at night, when the temperature falls ever so slightly over into freezing, that the same slosh will turn into dangerous icy areas just waiting to break bones and damage knees. I’m tired of knowing that this will only be exacerbated by the stupidity of the people in charge who insist that throwing rough gravel on top of the ice helps prevent slipping, when in fact it merely adds to the danger.

Whatever happened to the winters that I used to know when I move to Umeå about five years ago? I don’t recall my first winter here being anything like this one. Now, instead, the gray, boring snowless winters of southern Sweden has become a norm even up here.

I try to be optimistic about this. But I do wish that the weather could decide on what it wants to be, because I’m tired of the ice covering the walkways. I’m tired of not being able to take a proper walk because I’m too scared of breaking my neck or causing general injury to my precious body.

So, dear weather. If you’re gonna be warm, then BE WARM, goddammit! Don’t do the snow-thing for a day, then thaw it into muck and freeze it to ice the same night. Despite being a northerner by genetic and birth I do like warm weather. Maybe not Orlando, Florida-warm but none the less I like warm weather.

And snow and cold works equally well for me. I’m very adaptable. I like snow. I like walking in snow. I like well-plowed walkways and I like a bit of chill nipping at my nose. I like taking a good walk and coming home with a slightly numb face from the cold. That’s a proper winter if you ask me.

But I don’t like this inbetween-nonsense. It’s currently +5 degrees celsius outside. This is ridiculuous. It’s too cold to wear shorts, but it’s too warm to snow. Just this ice, with a layer of melted water to make it REALLY dangerous walking outdoors. On top of that, sprinkled gravel since some yahoo in charge (despite my angry emails to the contrary) still thinks it’s a good choice as slip-prevention.

Please, decide on a season and stick with it.

(I saw on the weather the other day that it’s +3 degrees in Jokkmokk, where my parents live. That’s absurd beyond description.)

One again I paste the picture from about two years ago when I slipped on the stupid gravel and cut a nice gash in my hand. I’m sure that this is going to happen again.

License

This work is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.5 Sweden License.