This past Saturday, winter came, with snow and freezing cold. I am glad it snowed on the night to Saturday, this let people change tires during the weekend. Probably because of this, there were fewer crashes during the Monday rush hours. The first day of snow is usually filled with small crashes and long lines on the roads, but this year it was less than usual.

Before my vacation (the week November started) it was still a bit of sun when I went to work and when I came home. Now it is dark when I come home, and long before sunrise in the morning. The deep of winter is coming. It is too cold to take long trips outdoors, or at least it is no longer good for my health. I even turned down an opportunity to play Ingress, the virtual reality game by Google which is played in the real world using Android cell phones. It maps an imaginary world on the real world, with strange portals and mysterious objects that you have to visit in the flesh in order to complete the game goals. I approve if it can get people up from the couch. But for me now, the couch would probably be safer for my health. In addition to arctic cold, there was also fairly strong wind. (Actually it is cold indoors too, but I manage to keep the home office warm.)

We had a couple days below freezing, with even a dusting of snow, but mostly the snow melted and then froze again to ice. After a couple days, the rain returned. It’s been “green winter” for some weeks now, with temperatures hovering just above the freezing point, except for those couple days of cold. This has been the most common winter weather for the last 10-15 years, at least. Last year and the year before were exceptional: The temperature was like in a deep freezer, and it stayed like that for weeks or even months. All this began within a handful of days after the Copenhagen Climate Summit, by the way. Think of that what you will. It affected Denmark (where the summit was) and all the countries that border on it, including my native Norway (which lies across a stretch of sea, but not exactly an ocean).

I am a bit curious as to whether the Copenhagen Summit weather will return for the third winter in a row, or whether we will return to the green winters with a few weeks of deep snow in late January, through February and a bit into March. But at least this time the water magazines are much fuller, so the electricity should be less expensive.

Also, this time I don’t live in a 200 year old house where I had to stuff rags in the gap between the floor and the wall and under one of the doors.

The house I live in now is not nearly as old, but it is clearly lacking in insulation. The windows have only a single layer of glass pane, something that is almost unheard of in houses where people actually live in the winter. Most older homes replaced these with double or triple glass, because it quickly pays itself over the utility bill. I believe the state also gave loans for this a few decades ago, as well as insulating walls. Well, this just confirms my suspicion that this house too is one that will be torn down and replaced with a new as soon as the landlord finds a rich enough buyer. It is very centrally located in Mandal, so the price will likely be decided 100% by its location. Even so, I try to not leave it any worse than I found it, just in case. Plus it is a good habit.

I am not going to replace the windows though. Hopefully we’ll continue to get green winter. Although my walking routine is severely disrupted since it rains cats and dogs most days. My jogging shoes are quickly degraded by wading, and the weather has been such that I could not keep them even slightly dry. So I have taken up the exercise bike again. It is showing its age, and so am I: I cannot use it for an hour or more like I do walking, or my knees are shot. (Or as they say in Skyrim: “I used to be and adventurer like you; then I took an arrow in the knee.” It is not quite that bad, but the effect is somewhat similar if I don’t restrain myself.)