realistically done. I kept thinking I should have gone inside to hold it up, but apart from the fact that I am not sure we could have unzipped the door without it collapsing, I don’t think it would have been a very safe idea.

So I headed down the hill and drove over to deliver the bad news and bring them back so that we could move all their stuff into their house, which was at least waterproof. When I told them what had happened, there was no gasping or questioning. Tarje said factually “Well I guess we’d better live in the house”. It’s quite spectacular how chilled out they are. We could all do with being a bit more like Tarje. They got themselves ready and off we went. We hiked up and we dug out the tent to retrieve their things and move them inside where we had to shake off the snow and leave it all to be sorted out another time. The tent wreckage got left on the platform for now and we all went down to our rental house for warm tea and lunch before I took them home.

On day three we woke up to find it had snowed less in the night and it melted a bit over the course of the day, which was a relief. We spent the day reading and eating and went over to Tarje and Signe’s for dinner, but by the time we were driving home at 11pm, it was snowing again and we skidded up the road to the car park and sloshed home to bed.

On day four I woke up to find Dave and Charlie gone and a huge dump of fresh snow outside. When I headed up towards the house, I found their footprints and met them on their way down from clearing the tent, which had taken poor Dave ages when he was supposed to be working. That day it stopped snowing a little but the whole area suffered a power cut, so we went up in the afternoon to try and clear the solar panels to at least have power up there. It was a tricky job getting on the roof and trying to clear them, and Dave only managed to uncover parts of some of the panels, so we didn’t get any power from them, but he did at least manage to charge the laptop off the batteries. By the time we went back home, it was almost the end of the day and the power came back on, which saved us a job eating several kilos of Brussels sprouts out of the freezer.

On day five we woke up to a load more snow and Dave headed off to the wifi place for work whilst I trekked up to the house with the puppy. It was quite something just getting up there! The snow in the track was up to my knees and I followed in Charlie’s tracks for an easier walk. The trees by the path were bowing or broken under the weight of the snow; hanging branches dangled and snapped bits of tree were strewn across the path. When we got up towards the house, the snow was up to my waist in places and Charlie had to bounce like a deer to get anywhere. She’s spring up to go forwards, then land and sink up to her tummy before springing up again. We made it up to the tent platform and I set about shovelling. The snow was thick and heavy, sticking to the shovel, making the tool twice as heavy as normal and half as effective. Every time I cleared a space on the platform, I’d have to brush snow down off the tent, which would fill the space and I’d clear it again. It took about an hour to clear the tent and I left the platform to do later because I needed some breakfast.

In the afternoon I decided we needed supplies. I’d been putting off shopping because of the snow but we hadn’t been to the supermarket since getting back from holiday and I was feeling the need to get out of the village. We borrowed some shovels from a neighbour and headed over to the car. We couldn’t actually see any of it, just a big white dome with a mound of snow blocking it in after the snow plough had been past. We spent about an hour digging it out and manoeuvring it out of the space. The road down had been ploughed but it had been snowing all day so it was a bit slippery and there was only a single track with huge snow banks on each side. It was a bit surreal getting to the bottom and driving along a snow-free road towards the snow-free city and being dressed in gaiters with a shovel in the boot. On my way back, I made my way slowly up the slushy tracks in the snow, skidding all the way. Finally at the top, someone was parked in the space I’d left behind, so I had to dig out a new one. Meanwhile Dave was digging out the tent platform that I hadn’t finished that morning. It was almost dark by the time the car was parked, the tent was cleared and we were walking to the rental house with the shopping, ready to go to bed.

Spot the car!!

On day six, we woke up to no extra snow. Thank goodness for that! I went up to the house with Charlie to take some pictures. The path up there was alright because we’d been up and down every day and there is a hard packed snow trail now. But going into our field was another matter! The greenhouse had almost completely buried itself from shedding snow off the front and making a huge mound below. I could hardly move around – one leg would sink in all the way to my bum without my foot finding the ground, then I’d have to try and get the other leg ahead of it. When I finally got to the greenhouse, my pea seeds needed watering but all the taps were frozen.

It was quite nice walking around in the snow when it wasn’t snowing any more and I was feeling optimistic. But it’s snowing again now and the forecast is for it to carry on until Sunday! Watch this snowy space…