This was as hot as it got.  I have known it get to +11C in January before but this year only one day was this hot.  However, although it freezes at night, the temp has reached above freezing every day for a couple of weeks now.

At first, we got sunshine.

For about an hour in the morning, it pours through my front door.  Even if the wind is too sharp to sit on the deck, I can sunbathe just inside the house.  No spa could ever give me such a feeling of luxury.

The snow was rotten and crusted so not all that easy to get around in,  but the light was beautiful.

It didn’t last long, though.  Two days and we had another warning sunrise…..

Then we were back to various shades of fog and gloom.

The river has opened up quite a bit.

This was one of the sunnier days.

I went to Nimpo Lake to get mail.  Highway 20 was bare.

My 4 km of roadway was a skating rink.  Scary to drive, even with chains on.  We often get ice but I’ve never seen it as bad as this. (The hills and twists don’t help!)

Then it snowed another couple of inches.

The snow did not bond with the ice very well but it gave a bit of traction.  More thawing and rain was forecast.  I thought I should take the opportunity to get my van out to the highway.  It is AWD, but I wouldn’t want to risk the glare ice.  The truck has chains and I can drive back and forth with it. It is a pain to have to load things from one vehicle to the other all the time, but not as big a pain as using the truck full time and having to put chains on when I came home from something in the dark.  I parked where the snow ploughs and sand trucks turn around.  I had to find a spot out of the way.  The drivers all know my vehicle so I hope they don’t plough me in too badly if it snows.

Then I walked home.  3 km in is the fork to my neighbours’.  I arrived at the same time as a hay truck.  Phew! 30 minutes later I would have met it en route.

In summer it is possible to squeeze past an oncoming vehicle most of the time.  Because of the snowbanks, there are now very few places where you can do this.  Someone has to back up: if I’d met the hay truck, it would have been me!  I might have had to back up 3 kms!

It was supposed to be thawing and sunny today.  But it is raining again.