When it is summer, I´m looking forward to winter and when it´s winter I look forward to summer. Today, I was told our local cafe is now closing at 6pm instead of the 8pm it does in the summer. Summer is over.

But that doesn´t mean winter is here or that it´s freezing cold or that we will have snow next week, but it is coming and I´m not looking forward to it too much now.

There are fun things though about both seasons in Sweden, but I´ve only just gotten used to the summer ones and it is as good as over.

We went out on a floating sauna the other day and it was fun to dive into the lake, but it was a warm day and the water was nice.

I´m not so sure it will be that nice at the moment though or again this year as I´ve just checked and it is 8°C outside and while it is night and you would sort of expect it to get cold, it does mean the water will be cooling down from the 19°C we had at the weekend, when we had, I quite fancy, the last of the nice warm sun.

I don´t think I´ll be diving in the water again this year, but we do have skiing to look forward to when the snow does finally come.

It is just now about surviving the wind and rain until October when the first of the snow will come and go before hopefully it settles properly in December.

Below, just for reference, is an extract from Encarta, but nobody here would be surprised if we got -25°C for a day or three in January or February and believe it or not, it´s not actually that bad, as it is a dry cold and you are dressed for it, so it´s actually sort of okay.

Taken from MSN Encarta
The climate of northern Sweden is considerably more severe than that of the south, primarily because elevations are higher and because the mountains block moderating marine influences. The average temperature in February, the coldest month, is below freezing throughout Sweden, with an average temperature range in Stockholm of -5° to -1°C (22° to 30°F), in Göteborg of -4° to 1°C (25° to 34°F), and in Piteå, in the northern part of the country, of -14° to -6°C (6° to 22°F). In July, the warmest month, the average temperature range is 13° to 22°C (56° to 71°F) in Stockholm, 13° to 21°C (56° to 69°F) in Göteborg, and 12° to 21°C (53° to 69°F) in Piteå. In summer, the amount of daylight increases as the latitude becomes more northerly. North of the Arctic Circle, daylight is continuous for about two months. In winter, continuous darkness occurs for about two months.