Wednesday, January 6

I woke at the normal time this morning to find myself inside an unnecessary bank holiday: Twelfth Night or Epiphany. I went back to sleep, woke up an hour or so later, and went for a walk.

I had much of the neighbourhood to myself, interrupted occasionally by dog-walkers of various sizes with dogs of various sizes.

The snow had not fallen again but neither had the temperature risen. For most of the week the temperature has hovered just below zero. Snow that has not got cleared away has therefore turned into the kind of ice that will not get moved until the sun eventually turns up to melt it.

I walked for thirty minutes, listening to a podcast and then to Jack Johnson’s last album from a few years ago. I turn down an alley into the fields behind Linnanherrantie and look at the view. The snow-covered landscape, and the trees in the week light, stop me for a few seconds.

I stand and look around with nobody else in sight.