It's still cold and icy today, with a thick coating of very soft snow covering everything to a depth of about 20 cm. The ploughs have been out in the streets early this morning, but several hours later, you can hardly tell that they have passed by. On the sea, the snow is filling the cracks in the ice, turning it all into a field of snow once again.




I've heard people muttering this week that it's March and high time for spring to have started. They must have very short memories, because last year at this time, it was snowing and minus 26.9C. I can report, however that some things never change. At the mention of going out into the snow, Lambi dug herself deeper into the quilts and pretended we weren't there.




I'm waiting to see how long her bladder can hold out. It's going to be a while before all of this melts. It's funny that I have an online friend, Sigurrós, who lives in Iceland and she has been posting photos on her photo site of the emerging crocus flowers. I don't know about you, but I always think of Iceland as, well... a land of ice. But it is not at all. Because of the north Atlantic stream, it is milder there than in Sweden and well on the way to spring. Some of Sigurrós's photos, with that special northern light makes me want to jump on the first available flight to Reykjavik. Maybe Lambi needs to shift there as well, though she's looking quite content on her blanket.

One bit of good news is that the apartment renovations are now in the home stretch. It's been a trying few months, not helped by the inclement weather and the maze of pipes everywhere that we've had to climb over to get around.




This was our cellar area a couple of weeks ago, with temporary sewer and water pipes set up while the new main pipes were installed and the laundry completed. I can now happily report that they have finished! And yesterday I was the first one to get to try out the new laundry.

For those who don't live here, I should point out that many apartment buildings have a communal laundry in the cellar area of the building. When I first came to Sweden, I was slightly appalled by this. Of course, I wanted my own washing machine and dryer in my own apartment. I'd never owned a drier before in my life, but you need one here as there is no options to hang up clothes outside to dry. Well, not at this time of the year.




But I've gradually come around to the idea of using the communal machines. You simply book a time and use the three industrial sized washing machines, the tumble drier and the heated drying rooms. It's great because I can now do all of my weekly washing in one go, using all the machines at once. And the laundry room looks really nice now - clean, fresh and bright:




The system seems to function really well. Several people have their own machines in their apartments, so there is not normally a problem booking a suitable time and most people do their bit by cleaning up afterwards. Of course there is always one who annoys everybody else by leaving laundry in the machines and even hogging other times that he's not booked, but I just avoid having a time near when he is booked in and that mostly functions.

These new, fancy front loading machines are easy to operate, though I thought I'd done something very wrong yesterday and called in the workers who were still in the building. I had put in my washing, added detergent and fabric softener and followed the instructions exactly. Select temperature - check. Select any extra things you want (pre-wash, extra rinse etc) - check. Press start - check. What I expected was that the machines would start to fill with water. But instead it went through a spin cycle, including a fast centrifuge. At first, the plumber assured me that it was all okay, saying that the machine was computer controlled and it weighed the load to select the optimal water level and washing time. But even he was confused and a little unsettled by the very fast centrifuge cycle. Was the water even connected, I wondered. He kept saying that they had done a test cycle on all of the machines. We waited a while and then to our relief, it suddenly started to fill with water.

Forty five minutes later, three large loads of washing were done and hanging up to dry. It's a real time saver to do it this way, leaving more time for fun things - like voting for The Poodles in tonight's Melodifestivalen.

Woof! Woof!