What's with all the trees?
'What's with all the trees?' has been a frequent question this year. In January I was in extreme weather conditions in Finland: -31C temperatures when driving to the Finnish travel fair. At the same time Sintra had its own extreme weather, a very rare cyclone, as 130-140 kms/hour winds swept through Sintra and Lisbon area. In a few hours Sintra lost roughly 2500 trees. About a month later, heavy winds hit us again and even more trees went down, weakened allready by the previous storm. 3000 trees is alot. Yet when you look up the mountain, it looks the same. It is only when you are actually in the mountain, walking through the parks and the paths that the reality hits you. When I returned from Finland I thought I would give it a few weeks for the workers to clean up and then I would walk up again, and did my morning walks in town and on the beach instead. Three weeks after the storm, after listening to the chainsaws day in and day out, I thought the paths would