A Winter's Day

Papaver dahlianum near Sysselmann's office in Longyearbyen

It is winter here.

There is snow over everything, and Christmas is on the way! It feels like I am in a christmas movie - gingerbread, mulled wine and sparkly snow drifts crunching under my boots as I walk to and from uni.

It is wonderful to see the contrast actually, the difference between summer I remember from previous years in the Arctic, to the winter I am experiencing now! The constant darkness has been disorienting, but thank goodness for watches and time keeping! Otherwise I do believe I would be constantly lost.

However! The poppies, the flowers, the vegetation that I am used to are all underneath a decent covering of snow now. I did come across these two, poking out above the snow:

Old poppy seed capsules in December

It never ceases to amaze me how these plants survive in suspended animation, almost, during the dark, cold winter under layers of snow or coated in ice.

Here is hoping I manage to make it through the next three months above the snow and ice, experiencing my first true snowy christmas eve and writing my thesis in the perpetual dark!