It was no surprise to us that Stockholm is greener than London. Both cities have green stuff, but in London it tends to be concentrated into parks, which are unevenly distributed. In some parts of town you can get long stretches of streets and housing with nothing green in sight. Stockholm has many more tree-lined streets. Of course, moving from inner-city apartment to a leafy suburb also made a difference

What I’d forgotten, though, is how beautiful Stockholm becomes in autumn. The majority of trees in London are London Planes. In autumn their leaves just go brown. But here in Stockholm there are maples, birches, chestnuts, and ah, the colours! Bright reds and dark reds, greenish yellows and fiery oranges. Every morning (and that’s no exaggeration) I look at the beautiful red maples along the road to the train station, and I cannot help smiling. Every evening on my way home they make me smile again. I’ve never wanted to take a photo of an ordinary London tree but here I’m often reaching for the camera.

And the skies. You might think they would be pretty much the same everywhere, but you’d be wrong. The London sky is generally either all blue or all grey – there seems to be some sort of local weather effect which turns all clouds into 100% even dull cover. But the sky over Stockholm is so much more varied and interesting. Wispy clouds, little fluffy clouds, looming dark grey mounds. I am in love with the clouds here.