April showers may very well bring May flowers as the old saying goes, but somehow I don't think that counts at latitude sixty degrees north. I'm starting to doubt Spring exists here at all. Yesterday morning it was snowing again - it was grey, misty and tons of big fat snowflakes were raining down, covering all that lovely bare ground from Saturday. It just doesn't seem fair.

On Saturday there was hope - I stepped out into the back garden and there was the first sign of daffodils peeking up through the leaf litter. Leaves??? Where did they come from? It's been solid ice and snow out here for the last 100 days.




I always look forward to this little splash of green and each spring I marvel at the fact that these are still alive and thriving after months of darkness and burial. In Swedish, the daffodil is called an Easter lilly (påskliljor) though I seriously doubt that they will be flowering any time around Easter this year. Everything seems to be late sprouting because the snow has hung around a lot later than usual. All of the prophets of doom and gloom are predicting that the new potatoes and strawberries will be late this season as well. I remember similar predictions about the cherry crop regularly around Christmas in Adelaide, which I always thought was just an excuse to bump up the prices. The Swedish nation will let out a communal wail of anguish if there are no Swedish potatoes or strawberries to grace the table for Midsommar, so it will be interesting to see whether they are willing to compromise and use produce from other EU countries. I suspect not.

Moving on to my front garden on Saturday morning, I spotted a lone clump of golden crocus.




I looked around hopefully was puzzled that only this lot were up and flowering. Where were all of the others? Then it hit me - this clump was positioned right by the wall and lying under the outlet vent for the tumble dryer! But still, that welcome splash of colour put me in a positive frame of mind and I walked happily down to the harbour where I saw water for the first time in months.




Yes, the ice is retreating rapidly in the spring sunshine and more and more birds are arriving each day. The warm glow and that amazing blue sky make everything seem alive and there were a lot of people out walking around the harbour, sitting in the sun sipping coffee and crowding into the smokery to pick up some of their famous smoked fish. Everyone was cheerful, walking with a real spring in their step and therefore wholly unprepared for Sunday morning's weather report, where the meterologists cheerfully told us that there was more than enough snow falling to make a snowman! Thanks for that, there was already more than enough before this morning.




This lone heron must be wondering why he returned so early and where on earth the water went. In a fit of spring activity, Lars-Göran took out the pressure cleaner and cleaned off all of the garden furniture so it could all be put out for everyone to sit out in the sunshine. Ha! Ha! He also washed the windows on Saturday morning, so I could have predicted that foul weather would follow if he was silly enough to tempt fate like that. Fortunately yesterday afternoon the sun came out late in the day to lift the scene, though it was definitely not the day to sit outside and have a picnic.




Still, it was lovely to be out for a Sunday afternoon stroll. The scenery, the fresh atmosphere, the noise of both the wind through the trees and the beating, whoosing wings from the chevrons of swans flying overhead was great. Today, just in time for the working week, it is grey and depressing again, though being a tad warmer, the snow has turned into rain instead. Well, at least we've had a little taste of spring. It will be back (it better be!) and hopefully we won't have to wait too long.

Today has been a day of frustrations and quite a bit of "Oh F***king Hell" as I battle with the kind of red tape that eventually I want to grab and wrap round the people who are adding yardage to it by the minute. Of course I understand that this wouldn’t help the situation but it is always very tempting and I’m easily led astray.

I got to the stage where it was either time for murder or time to just shrug and walk away with a wry smile. I shrugged but it was a slow walk away. I won’t go in to details, just suffice to say that I was once again forcibly reminded that man made, arbitrary borders and barriers are just that. A figment of an overactive mind and when that mind has been enlarged by a political process that is also something of a figment of imagination, any attempt to cross the border for anything other than that which is deemed as either a requested, required or respectable reason, it becomes matted in a web of red tape and a tangle of routinely regimented restrictions.

[inset a loud scream here]