Tuesday, February 22

We get up to the results of the snowstorm. We cannot get out of the house without digging ourselves out, and we will not get the car out of the drive without a major effort. I get the snowblade and set to work after first taking several photos including one of Minna’s apple tree which overlooks our drive.

At the back of the house the piles of snow have grown taller than the window frames. At the front I stand in the drive halfway up to my knees in drifts. Espoo has apparently had 92 centimetres of snow and this doesn’t look much less.

I genuinely don’t know where to start.

Fortunately the snowplough turns up and clears the road itself allowing me to push the snow from our drive in to the woods. This will take a lot of time but the alternatives all involve cutting off our neighbours, which seems unlikely to win us many friends. I will wave to some of them from time to time as we each attempt to clear some space for ourselves.

It will take me over two and a half hours to clear paths so that we can get in and out of the house and get the car from the garage to the road. I will start writing at lunchtime.