Sunday, February 1

There was obviously an enormous snowstorm overnight, because when we woke up all the paths had been obliterated. I went outside before breakfast to see what needed doing and started work.

The snowplough had left a solid wall of hardening snow, heavy and wet, along the front of our drive. It was well over a metre tall at some points. It took me almost an hour to remove this in order that the car could get in and out.

After breakfast I spent another hour and a half clearing the snow from the paths in the garden so we could get to the sheds and the compost without being ankle deep in slush.

Once I had finished that the three of us started moving things around. I dismantled Naa’s bed and replaced it with Auo’s, because one strut on Naa’s has snapped somehow. Then we moved Auo’s bed into Naa’s room. This meant that I could dismantle the sofa in the living room and move the base into Auo’s room where it can serve as a mattress. The sofa has never worked. It was supposedly a sofa that would also function as a bed but this mean that it was too wide to sit on comfortably and everyone climbed on it uncomfortably like three year olds on adult furniture.

After this we drove to Ikea to get the sofa we saw two weeks ago. This meant taking some things to be recycled and then going to borrow a trailer. Once we had done this, dropped the huge packages at home, then returned the trailer, I set about making the sofa.

This was wonderfully easy and now here it is: a freshly made Karlstadt sofa from Ikea.

Sunshine will be suspicious at first, having been put out by the hammering and carrying all afternoon. However it will join us and apparently decide that it is a suitable place to lay.