It's pretty cold.

In 1999, we travelled home to Ireland for Christmas from Singapore. For a week, we sat on our hands at my mother's house, vowing never to travel back for Christmas ever again because it was too cold. Oh never, say never! Right now, it is -12.5 degrees Celsius on my doorstop and the prospect of flying to Dublin on Friday is as eagerly anticipated as a trip to the Tropics. Well almost. Given the joy that is travelling with tonnes of small children, a two-hour journey to somewhere not so very cold is far preferable to a 14-hour one keeping egotistical little people, with no concern or consideration for the sensibilities of other larger, less energetic beings, quiet on the way to somewhere very hot.
I suppose cold can look pretty, as it did this morning when the sun rose, around 9 AM, over Oslo fjord (above). We haven't had any snow but everything is covered in a layer of ice/frost. It's like some frozen wasteland (to me at least). It's the first time the temperatures have dropped so low pre-Christmas since we arrived in 2004, and they've been this low for a week now. So much for global WARMING.

Thank goodness we'll be having a green Christmas :-)