Doesn't it always snow in Norway during winter? Well yes, most of the time, but this winter has been exceptional, so much so that we've experience conditions almost similar to those seen in the UK whenever there is even very light snowfall.

At the start of this year I was contacted by BBC Scotland who wanted to go to Oslo to do a story on how Norwegians were coping with the snow on the premise that the Scots probably had one or two things to learn from Norwegians when it came to dealing with snow. That is true, in the years I lived in the UK I always thought it ridiculous how even a few thin patches of snow could bring all public transport to a standstill, so when I agreed to set up the interviews for BBC's visit neither I nor they had any idea this would be the result:

You need to click on this link, or the one above, to see the video. It's great fun, but I'm afraid there's not really many lessons for the Scots in there.

However, now that the winter finally seems to be coming to an end here - the snow is melting and it's spring equinox this weekend - here's the few photos from the winter the amount of snow reached industrial propportions Norway (in Oslo we've had several warm winters with little snow until the winter of 2008/9, when we almost ran out of places to put all the snow cleared away from roads and public places, but it still proved to be nothing compared to 2009/10):

Once there was a car...

a car window...

And yes, this winter I also found myself snowed in on one occasion, when visiting a relative only 33 kilometers from Oslo, and had to clear mountains of snow to get to the car. Last winter, we only reached the point that local authorities had to put up signs to prevent people from dumping more snow in the sea:

Now, I'm so glad it's finally spring... 

(all photos by me, the difference in quality is down to some being captured with my mobile phone camera and the latter two with my Canon Powershot)