15.02.2026 Manual snow clearing.

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  Sunday 15th 23F/-5C. Overcast but another cold, sunny day is promised. 59F/ 15C in the room. 36F/2.2C in the heavily frosted greenhouse. I'll have to light the stove. Using chestnut logs. I am pre-drying them on top of the stove. It is clad in soapstone so isn't a fire risk. I didn't keep the stove alight overnight due to a lack of fuel.

 Up at 7.30 after a typical night. I woke from another dream about wandering another city I didn't know. Trying to find my way back. Presumably to my parked car. A familiar subject matter. Incredibly detailed. Even the "extras" in the dream had characters, relationships and moods. 

 It must all have been imagination and often completely illogical. Or completely at odds with reality. It seemed every place, surface and item had texture and meaning. I was even discussing tools I had just found with my late wife. They say that dreams are sifting through memories. Perhaps to sort, or to discard overfull memory banks. Where they no longer have value. 

 Perhaps these dreams are suggestive of dementia? I seem able to remember far more images of my childhood as time passes. Often just random glimpses in picture form. If this were true, then I must, quite literally, have remembered everything which has ever happened to me. Albeit at random in usually involuntary flashes of incredible detail. 

 Which is ironic given my appalling memory. Sitting in exams and not being able to remember the simplest of things. A whole lifetime of collecting hundreds of text books. Just to remember Pythagoras Theorem. I tried to write in my youth but couldn't remember my own character's names!

 Being sent to buy salmon and coming back with spam. With a completely blank memory of the sole purpose of my trip to the local shop. Until I started writing full lists. Otherwise I would stand in the shop or supermarket without a clue what I was supposed to buy. 

 More recently I can move freely through the village supermarket and pick items on my way purely by habit. Which probably explains my lack of imagination when it comes to diet. Even then I am often leaving my basket by the checkout. To fetch the vitally important item I had walked blindly past twice or three times. 

 Intelligence and creativity, without a functioning memory, is a torment. It often feels as if everything I do has to be reinvented from scratch. Every single time. I spend countless hours rehearsing what I'll do or say. Then completely forget everything in the meantime. Yet I am fairly good at remembering places. Though never by name. A lifetime of fascination/obsession with astronomy. Yet unable to reliably recognize more than three constellations. Or the dimensions of the members of the Solar System. It's no wonder I made observatories and telescopes instead. 

 9.00 It is brightening. Blue sky visible. The chestnut logs seem to be burning well. Even without the pre-heating. That's a relief! I can go for a walk now. No point in coming back to a cold stove and colder house!

 9.30 27F/-3C. Back from my walk. Just a loop of the neighbours' drives. Bright sunshine with a cold breeze. Still only 59F/15C in the room.

 10.30 I am going to try and clear a path along the drive. So the car can reach the main drive. Where the snow has been flattened by vehicles coming and going. Except for the junction. Where is all ploughed up by somebody reversing into my section of drive.

 10.50 29F/-2C. Bright sunshine. I  have made a track on one side. Just under 100m. Using a large plastic snow shovel. Taking the snow down to about 5cm from at least 15cm. The snow is crunchy and becomes stiffer the deeper I go. Now I am completely breathless. 

 I may be able to use another tool to reach the ground beneath the snow. A garden rake? That will warm the ground in the sunshine and help the snow to thaw. Despite the frost. My breathlessness has already passed. So I'll go out and work on the other side of the drive in a minute or two.

 11.40 A second path is cleared. The snow was even stiffer than the other side of the drive. I am not only breathless again but my wrist is hurting. It is also blowing a gale! My eyes are watering and it is freezing. The wind has gone more southerly. So it is blowing straight down the drive. 

 So I went to the other end and worked with my back to it. At least I didn't get hot. I'd like to clear more snow in the middle of the drive. If I have the strength. That would help to accelerate the thaw. It is very heavy work. With the snow lifting as slabs. Rather than powder. I need a rest before I do any more. The parking area is still covered to a depth of between 15 and 20cm. 

 At thetop of the page I have posted a picture of our hero. Busy tidying up the last of the second path along the drive. Captured by a security camera. I'm 79 you know! 😉

 I keep hearing sirens. I hope it isn't unfit people having strokes and heart attacks while clearing snow.

 18.15 25F/-4C. The snow has been sliding off the house roof and out over the greenhouse roof. A very noisy business! I cleared some snow from around the rear entrance to the house. There was a distinct double layer with the upper snow lifting in slabs. I can't make any progress on the under layer. Then I dragged a recycling bin along the drive. Made slightly easier by my earlier work in clearing. 

It is still blowing a gale and freezing cold out there. I brought in more chestnut logs. Several chances to get completely breathless. 

 I have sausages and eggs to use up for dinner. One of my silly omelettes? Why not? I made it exotic by adding cheese.

 The chestnut logs are burning well. 

 

  

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14.02.2026 Visitors in the sunshine.

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  Saturday 14th 21F/-6C [8.00] A cold but sunny day is promised. Peaking at -1C with lighter winds. Still waiting for the cloud to clear. Expected to drop to -10C/14F around 7am tomorrow morning.

 Up at 7.30 after a busy night. I was waking at 1-2 hour intervals and using the excuse to feed the stove. With some difficulty in catching the very large logs alight from the glow in the ash bed at times. Too much air and the log burnt too rapidly. Filling the room with bright, flickering light. Too little air and it just smoldered. 

 Despite everything I managed to maintain 60F/15.6C in the room overnight. The stove is going well after a new and last log went in before breakfast. I'll have to start searching for more fuel!  The snow has prevented me from fetching more logs from the vendor. There is a large stack of chestnut logs outside but it is not very accessible. The snow is deep from drifting just there. 

 8.30 It has reached 62F/16.7C ad I can feel the heat from the stove on the back of my neck. 

 9.00 22F/-5.6C. 63F/17C. Thinking about a walk but I would prefer some sunshine. 

 9.15 Finally some golden light on the trees and blue sky. 

 9.45 Back from my walk. Mostly in bright sunshine. The drive was even more difficult as the snow had frozen harder. I had to use my own footprints to make steady progress. The neighbour's drives had been partially scraped. Allowing me to detour. There were waves of drifting at intervals some 30cm/12" high. 

 My nice neighbours came around to check on me after lunch. Which was kind of them. Bringing their pretty little pony with them. And their cat. Which had followed them. Then complained that it wanted to go home again. I see the cat going back and forth almost every hour on my security cameras. It doesn't like the snow. So I haven't seen it for a while. 

 I brought some  of the chestnut logs in from under the shed roof overhang. They measure 20% moisture content. on average. I had hoped it would be lower. They had a little snow on them but I don't think that has affected the reading. I think they will dry out further if they are indoors near the stove. At a safe distance of course. 

 I could fill the circular rack. Which I haven't used for the beech logs. Due to their large size. It was a nuisance to keep filling the rack so often. So I just used the plastic baskets for storage. I'll mix the chestnut with the last of the beech logs.

 The snow is at least 8" deep over the western lawn. So I had to wade through it going both ways to reach the far side of the stack of logs. Where access to useful sizes is easiest. Returning with a heavy basket full of logs on the way back. Which made me a bit breathless. Though I soon recovered. 

 The first chestnut log went in behind the beech and is already burning well.

 I am making sausage rolls for dinner. Boiled potatoes and tomatoes. First I have to thaw out the pastry from the freezer.

 20.15 Frost: 11F/-12C. 66F/19C in the room. It is supposed to be colder later. Not this early.

 

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13.02.2026 Friday 13th.

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  Friday 13th 28F/-2C [7.30]  Overcast and breezy but expected to remain dry. 57F/14C in the room. 41F/5C in the greenhouse. I had better light the stove! The footprints and e-bike tire tracks have been smoothed over by new snow. Or drifting.   

 Up at 6.50 after a busy night at the fire bucket. The sky to the north was lit up all night. Presumably streetlamps reflecting off the snow. 

 7.40 Stove lit. Another ash pan full needs emptying. The greenhouse roof has refrozen. There is a risk of sunshine around lunch time. Which might lift the temperature in the greenhouse. Perhaps enough to clear its roof again. Though unlikely to contribute any extra warmth to the house.  

 9.15 Going for a walk. 

 8.40 59F/15C. And back again. The snow is about 20cm/8" deep over the parking space. More variable in the drive. It seems I lack the skill to manage a proper catwalk stride in a single width tire track. A small bird of prey flew over and complained about the weather. I found myself in agreement. 

 The traffic was light. The road only messy where roadside hedges were lacking. There are massive icicles hanging from the shed. Where I failed to replace the gutter after shortening the overhanging roof. Another roundtoit.

 11.00 The room just broke the 60F/15.6C barrier. 

 19.30 25F/-4C. 62F/16.7C in the room. Dinner was fish fingers and chips. 

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