The End of the Road

After yesterday's hours of snow clearing it seemed a good idea to take it easy today. Yesterday I'd left our garden to get the post, all of 200 metres, but otherwise we'd both worked in and around our house, so today we would go for a walk.
We wrapped up warmly because it was -8°C and blowing hard, and headed down towards our usual lake and then past the lake, along the gravel road heading into the forest. We wanted to see how far the snow plough had cleared the road, and the answer was nearly as far as the house you see in today's picture.  That old house has featured on Blipfoto at least twice before, here and here, and today Jan blipped it too!
Where the snow clearing ended there is a small parking area, so if the people who own this pictured house want to visit it's a short wade through the snow. There are two more houses further away in the forest, and for the people who own them it's skis or a snow mobile that are needed.
Walking here the wind was in our faces, working hard to find any chinks in our defenses, freezing our cheeks. Taking pictures meant removing the outer gloves and working quickly before the fingers got too cold. Smartphone pictures were even harder because even the inner gloves had to come off.
As we turned around and headed for home the snow flurries increased to a minor blizzard. I'd thought of taking a longer walk but I gave up that idea as it grew darker and visibility reduced to about 50 meters in the thick snow. But at least the wind was behind us, pushing us forward and no longer chilling our faces. I made a detour to our post box in the center of the village and used a scraper to hack away some ice that was stopping it from opening properly. Then I spent a few minutes opening up our recycling bins which had frozen closed and were covered in a thick layer of icy snow. Finally we got home to our cosy house.
When I was young, growing up in London, we had to travel away from home to have adventures. Here we just need to step out of the front door and the adventures start!
What a lovely place to live!