38 in binary...

On this shortest day of 2021, in Härnösand, the theoretical sunrise is at 09:19, and sunset is 14:13,  I say "theoretical" because hills and forest get in the way. This picture was taken an hour before the sunset, but the sun has almost completely set anyway!
We were at the giant shopping area in Birsta, sometimes referred to as the Temple of Mammon, and sometimes, by us, as Mordor. Not our favourite place.  But we were down that way anyway so we (mostly I) decided to have the Christmas Smörgåsbord for lunch, at that well-known Swedish home-furnishing store.  It's very good value for money, very tasty, and caters well for vegetarians too, which is not the usual case in what is traditionally a rather carnivorous feast.
As you can see in the picture there wasn't a lot of snow left here after last week's thaw, (we have a lot more at home) but thankfully the thaw has ended and we enjoyed a crisp day with temperatures between -11 and -18.
There's a really interesting article in The Guardian about the reindeer herding Sami, the indigenous peoples living across the Arctic areas of Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia. The article explains why the cold is so important, and why warmth, at the wrong time of year, is so detested. There was a line I just loved; "We are an Arctic people and our culture is written in snow."  I can really appreciate such a sentiment.
(And now for a nerdy section...) I thought today's date, written Swedish style, year, month, day - 211221 - had a somewhat binary look to it.  Binary is usually written as zeroes and ones so I subtracted 1 from each numeral which gives you 100110, which in our more common base 10 counting system is 38.  So in some peculiar logic today's date is 38. Now there's a fact you can bore people with around the Christmas table.