About three weeks after I moved to Sweden, I was sitting on the couch reading while Lars-Göran watched the evening news on tv. At that time I did not understand more than three words in Swedish, so it was a constant stream of gibberish to me, though every so often an English word would crop up that I would recognise. As I was reading, I thought I heard the newsreader talk about "snow cows at Arlanda airport" and I looked up to see that flights had been cancelled or delayed and passengers were huddled in the terminal looking anxiously at the departure board. "Wow!" I said "It's just like the time we were in India in the early 1980s, trying to land at Bombay airport and we had to circle around endlessly while they cleared a herd of cows off the runway. But what are snow cows?"




As I uttered the last question the puzzled, slightly alarmed look on Lars-Göran's face was transformed into a huge grin and he fell about laughing. When he recovered the power of speech, he told me that the newsreader talked about sno kaos (snow chaos). It wasn't hard to understand how I came to make that error though, as the pronounciation of that word is "kay-oss" in English, whereas in Swedish it is "cows". Of course, that knowledge hasn't stopped me saying "Moo!" every time I've heard it since then. I guess you could say that I've milked it for all its worth (pun very much intended).

My beloved snow cows came to mind again yesterday as we were hit by the first big snowfall for the season. While November 1st is a little early for snow, I was amazed at the utter chaos that ensued everywhere. The proverbial headless chickens had nothing on the panic that took place yesterday in Stockholm and the strange thing is that this scenario unfolds every year when the first snow arrives. Yes, look at the headline: Snow Chaos in Sweden. May I just say "Moo!"




Looking out of my kitchen window I could see that it was hardly the day to take the bike to work, but what amazed me was that so many people were caught unprepared. How can you not expect snow when you live at 59° 17' North, the same latitude as Greenland and Alaska fer feck's sake.

This snow did not arrive unannounced, either. For days and days we have been seeing forecasts and watching satellite pictures of it sweeping eastwards across the Atlantic from Iceland and dumping huge snowfalls on Norway. Yet knowing all of this and with forecasters predicting snow and temperatures as low as minus 10C, had people bothered to change over their cars to winter tyres? Had the local councils made sure that the snow ploughs were ready to clear the streets? Was Storstockholms Lokaltrafik ready with a contingency plan for the buses, trains and underground?

Exactly.




It's Sweden. It's Snowing. Get over it. Even if I will admit that November 1st is a tad early for snow most of you have probably lived here your whole life and ought to be fully prepared. It's just snow, after all. I felt really sorry for commuters who had gone to work on public transport in the morning and come out in the afternoon to find that the bus company's response was to simply cancel all services!




Trains and the underground were not much better off and even those who had cars were forced to abandon them by the side of the unploughed roads. Other pitched in to help hapless motorists push cars that had slid across the icy surface so that the road could be cleared for the massive queues of cars waiting behind them. Many of these cars had summer tyres on them, which made them useless on ice. It is a terrifying feeling when that happens as I discovered not long after I arrived. I aged 10 years in a moment.




There were reports of people taking five hours to travel a stretch of road that would normally be a 20 minute ride even in peak hour traffic and several of my friends told me that they found themselves stranded outside of their office buildings for hours waiting for a ride.

Of course today, now the danger has passed and everyone is busy pointing the finger of blame at each other. Nothing new in that, I guess. And then as if to make light of it all, Mother Nature turns on one of her more glorious, sunny days and everything looks magical with its white, frosty covering.




Snow storm? What snow storm? See, Mother Nature has a wicked sense of humour. While it is always pretty in Nynäshamn when it snows, even in Stockholm on such a crisp, sunny day everything just dazzles and it turns into a fairy-tale city.




This picture was taken near the Stockholm Library, which is a striking structure designed by world renowned Swedish architect Eric Gunnar Asplund in 1918. He has been responsible for several notable buildings, but I love the iconic library builing the best. And from this angle, with the sun reflected off the snow, it looks particularly inviting.




It is not only one of the city's most important buildings architecturally, but the library is also a very important public building for the inhabitants of Stockholm, who still view it with affection and call it Asplundshuset. I love the warm colour, the clean lines and the unusual tower you can see. To an avid reader such as myself it somehow seems perfect to house books in a reading tower. It evokes the idea of surrounding yourself with a cocoon of literature. As you climb the staircase into the library, you are drawn into this rotunda of books at the very centre. I just love this place!




There is also the added advantage of it housing an enormous collection of English language books and I am able to order them to be delivered for me to pick up at my local library - and all for no charge as English is my native language. I order in around 10 to 15 books a month this way and keep up to date with my reading for free.

Down at the water, everything looks clean and fresh as the snow covers all of the impefections in a soft blanket. It is gratifying to see that there are still a few boats in the water even at this late date. In the distance, over on Skeppsholmen you can see the copper dome of the island's church.




With temperatures due to rise over the next few days, this will soon be slush, then disappear completely having reminded us humans that we are not totally in charge just yet. I hope you all keep well wrapped up and cosy and warm because I suspect that this was just the first taste of the arctic blast still to come.