Winter Memories from Sweden
Sometimes, our family would visit our summer cottage in Blekinge during the winter. We had time off between Christmas and New Year, and if we were lucky, there would be snow. Snow was rare in Denmark at that time of year, so we loved going to Sweden to ski. Sometimes, the lake would freeze over too, and we could go ice skating.
One Easter, the weather was absolutely fantastic. There was snow on the ground, but the sun was so warm that I decided to try skiing in my swimsuit. No sooner said than done! It was great fun – until I fell. Then my clothes were back on in no time! My parents were sitting outside having lunch and enjoying the sunshine. My dad thought it was very practical to stick the schnapps bottle in a snowdrift to keep it perfectly cold.
Another winter, when the whole family was there, Bertil wanted to surprise us with something special: a moonlit sleigh ride with his horse, Hamn. It’s a memory that still gives me goosebumps when I think about it. I so wish we had had mobile phones back then, so we could have filmed or at least taken photos, but it wasn’t possible with my little pocket camera.
That evening, the temperature was around minus 20 degrees. Snow weighed heavily on the branches of the pine trees, and the full moon cast a bluish light over the forest. The snow crunched under our boots as we walked, and when you breathed through your nose, the hairs froze into ice. We had to pull our scarves up over our faces to stop them from going completely numb.
Bertil came to pick us up in the sleigh, with Hamn harnessed and ready, and we each got a torch to light before the ride. The forest was completely still; the only sounds were the jingling of the sleigh bells and Hamn’s occasional snorting. We rode through the sparkling winter landscape to Bertil’s house, where his sister Nelly had prepared pea soup and warm punch. I remember that nothing had ever tasted so good – and even I got to try a little punch. It warmed us up perfectly for the ride home through the cold night.
Even then, I knew I was experiencing something unforgettable, something that would stay etched in my memory for the rest of my life. I’ve been on sleigh rides many times since, but never again by moonlight with torches. It was truly magical.
Unfortunately, I don’t have a good picture from that night – it was nearly impossible to take photos in the dark back then. Here is a picture of Hamn from another sleigh ride. We didn’t have mobile phones in those days, so you had to wait weeks to get your photos developed – and it was expensive too!
