Confused about snow-depth I take out a tape and find it 16 inches deep on the back lawn (40cms). I spend two hours clearing the drive and the path around the house. The snow-shovel cuts and lifts satisfyingly square blocks like white turves. Displaced mounds accumulate at the side of the house, in the garden and at the roadside. Step by step and block by block the drive becomes a way out again onto the lane.

More snow forecast, more snow falling and the roads still white. I decide...

I work the afternoon shift, but can’t get home. As the evening progresses all roads are blocked. I stay and work the night shift, getting three hours fitful sleep between one and four in the morning on the floor of a meeting-room. I work the morning shift until midday, and then get a lift in a 4X4 home. The white roads are empty of traffic. Pedestrians struggle along with bags of shopping. It is a gently apocalyptic scene. The snow piles high at the sides of everything.

These...

Sam comes to tell me with querulous calls that it has snowed heavily in the night. My first task is to clear a path for him and open some ground under the hedge. He follows me and squats down gratefully after scratching out the damp ground. He then races back into the house as if pursued by demon dogs.

I spend two hours clearing the path and the steep drive to the garage. Feeling energetic I dig out neighbour Raymond’s drive too. He’s in his eighties but needs to get his car out...

At first light I am downstairs looking out. It is beginning to snow. Redgrove’s words have stuck in my head: “Out of this passage-way you must dress in it.” I take off my dressing-gown and walk to the side of the house to check the temperature; it hovers around freezing. My feet on the stepping-stones of the path are not cold and leave perfect prints. I’m amazed that I don’t feel any chill. The snow deliquesces on my shoulders forming a warm slick pelt. I walk across the springy white lawn and wipe...

As I cycle along the velocity of the heavy traffic sends leaves whirling around me. Sun dances through the trees and I feel as if I am flying. By the time I get to Langsett Barn my heart is pounding. When I get off the bike I feel dizzy. I walk down an icy white path to the side of Langsett reservoir where my dad’s bench is. “Fred Bucknell loved these moors” it reads.

I sit down and look across the water to the summit of Pike Low. The sun gradually unclenches my cold face. I have...