Back to "Normal" Weather ... our snowman melted

Feb 14: Mik tried to fix the snowman's nose but was not successful

After more than a week of winter weather, Aberdeen normal weather returned. More snow was dumped all day Thursday last week even though it was not freezing temperature. No chaos on the road since the snow quickly melted away. Also everyone would probably get used to the snow after 2 weeks ... at least I would have thought so but the lady I met on Thursday disagrees because she dislike the snow. It has been getting "warmer" ever since with outside temperature of 8 degree C when I went to work today. Felt a bit strange (but glad) that I don't have to scrape any frost from my car for the last couple of days. Our happy snowman outside the house just could not stand the "heat" and getting shorter but not yet disappear.

Feb 15: Snowman's head fell off altogether

Feb 16: Upper body shrunk

Feb 17: Left with lower body

Escape to Stavanger, Norway

This is the third time that I visited Stavanger. The first time was more than 7 years ago when I was visiting a family friend with my wife. The second time was just last year in September or so. This time I was curious to see if the snow in Aberdeen will rival the snow in Stavanger ... and I was not disappointed. There are a lot more snow on the ground in Stavanger, though the 3 days that I was there were bright and sunny. Almost everyone that I met was talking about the skiing they did over the past weekend and planning of more skiing in the weeks ahead. Apparently there are very nice places to ski a short drive away from Stavanger.

Beautiful sunrise on Monday morning

Stavanger is much closer to Aberdeen than London. Flight from Aberdeen to Stavanger takes only 45 minutes while to London is about an hour. According to Google Earth, driving from Aberdeen to London will take 9 hours 38 minutes over the distance of 537 miles while driving to Stavanger will take 18 hours 35 minutes over a distance of 632 miles ... ? I guest sitting in a ferry crossing the North Sea from Newcastles to Stavanger can be considered driving. 
Like Aberdeen, Stavanger has a lot of granite. In fact there's several road with tunnels through the hills where I think they got their granite. Unlike Aberdeen, Stavanger buildings and houses are more modern, colorful and they are not made of granite. They seems to use granite to reclaim or flatten land rather than build buildings and houses.

Full moon on Monday night

Fountain in Breiavatnet in front of the hotel

Full moon above street light

Shops are closed but street was nicely lit

Harbour - there's actually swans following me

There's a lot of construction in Stavanger. I was a little late going to the office in Tananger this morning in the taxi due to heavy traffic. There was traffic back up at the road construction area and the taxi driver took a detour via Sola. When I was leaving the office today to go to the airport, no one was allowed to go outside for a while because blasting was ongoing and there was loud siren to warn people to stay away. The building actually shaken the moment the blast went off.

View in Tananger area

Constructions outside the building in Tananger area

For the 3 days that I was away, Aberdeen has not been snowing but having really cold weather instead with temperature dropped to as low as -15 degree C on Monday while Stavanger was just around -4 degree C. So I managed to escape the really cold temperature. When my plane landed in Aberdeen, however, it was snowing at the airport ... here we go again ...

Beautiful Sunday

It was really beautiful in Aberdeen today. Fresh snow fell last night. The sun was out giving cheer to the day. The birds were chirping away as we were leaving for church. The temperature at our house was -3 degrees C and raised to 0 degree by afternoon. Not many cars on the road and Union Street was rather quiet compared to previous Sundays. On the way home we stopped by my office to pick up something I forgot to bring for my trip out of town. Quite a few cars are abandoned in the parking lot. Along the way at Garthdee area, there were plenty kids actually ski down the slope next to Asda. Back at home, Mik could not resist but spent her time outside with the snowman once again. I was busy packing otherwise I probably would have joined her ...


Morning view in front of our house


Union Street was not buzzing as usual


Some car abandoned over the weekend at the office

Mik and I with our happy snowman

Another Day Another Snow Story

The episode of snow in Aberdeen is not over. Today the day started with another beautiful morning and the sun was out bright and sunny. This was especially nice since it is Saturday. The view outside the window looked fantastic with white blanket of snow everywhere. For once my front lawn look as good as our neighbour's ... By 11 am, fresh snow started to fall again as seen from inside our conservatory. The glass roof is covered with snow from the last 3 days.

This time it didn't snow for too long so we went out to pick up our friends who just returned from a 3 week holiday. Their first day back in Aberdeen was spent digging out their car, shoveling driveway and making a huge snowman with Mik.

One of our neighbours was also out today shoveling snows from his driveway and the road in front of our house. This road is shared among 4 houses and it was really kind of him to clear snows for a pretty long stretch of road. I can't even clear all the snows from my own driveway. My excuse: his shovel is bigger than mine!

He said the fact that the sun was out made it so nice to be outside ... and he got his fireplace going so he would enjoy sitting by the fireplace with some drinks afterwards.

After we had our rest in the house, nice and cozy, Mik reminded us that we are yet to go sledding as was promised to her yesterday. So we went to a slope within our neighbourhood where other kids were also sledding. Some of them have built a nice ramp and making stunts. I took some pictures when they are in the air ... and sometime crashed!

Mik also had a great time sledding. She had her own moment when she was flying in the air over a gentler ramp. Since the sun was setting it was getting really cold. I was busy taking pictures and I could not feel my fingers within such short period of time so I went home before Mik and her mom. 
It was a very nice evening. The moon was out. If only it was not unbearably freezing cold temperature, I would have stayed outside for a much longer time.