Back to the freeze...

Tonight's weather forecast said that we are in for a very cold spell to round off our longest winter yet. As many of you would have noted, winter set in as we were driving to Helsinki in mid-October when a snow blizzard kept us company most of the 600 km.

Thankfully, we were in India through the months of half of October, the whole of November and right until the middle of December.

Annikki, Mika and me in Alibaug in Madhu Kapur's fabulous retreat.
(Photo by Hasnain Chinwala.)

We landed back in Finland in a snow storm and I lost my old SIM card in the snow at Helsinki Airport, when my phone shot of my frozen hands.

And it has been winter all the way since then with not even a short spell of above zero temperatures.

It has been the longest coldest winter in my living memory (26 years of my 67 ) and Annikki's (44 years of her 66) here in Oulu.

So when we watched today's weather forecast, they said that night temperatures are going below -30 C and this cold spell is going to last a few more days after which we will have a bout of heavy snowfall.

In about an hour, 00:30, I have to be on my way to Oulu airport to pick up three engineers from Poland and distribute hem to three apartments around Oulu. This is a process which will take about an hour - if their baggage arrives along with them. Recent history has been that baggage has been lost, which means another half an hour at the airport.

Well, it looks as if I am going to enjoy the coldest part of the night trekking around our lovely snow bound city!

Good night, all of you tucked into warm beds or lounging in air-conditioned bedrooms, and spare a thought for this Christmas Goat trekking around in his red-nosed snowcar! :-)

Coldest winter in 7 years

I had one tenant arrive at 00:40. I dropped that person off at our apartment, got a couple of hours sleep, as the next one arrived by the 06:15 train from Helsinki.

As I glanced through the Kaleva, our local newspaper, before leaving for the station, the headline was that we are having our coldest prolonged winter in the last 7 years.

The year we came to Finland, 1984, was really cold. In end January and early February we had a long spell of -30 C and lower.

Then for a long period the winters were milder. Or, was it that they appeared milder because of that first hard one?

Now, on our return from India, we have had a really long and cold winter, not just that it seems cold because we have returned from India.

But one must remember that in mid-October, when we were driving down to Helsinki to catch our flight to India, we already went through blizzard like conditions almost all the way through our 600 km journey.

I can certainly say that we have had a really long winter in Finland. And if, what the Kaleva writes is correct, we are certainly having a really cold one!

The temperature last night on the Russian border, just 200 km away, was -36.5 C last night! (We really do live just 200 km away from our mighty neighbours!!!)

We are certainly obsessed with the weather!