[Sample Post] The first snow, seen from the terrace

The first snow decides the season. Before it, the inn is a walking inn: boots by the door, packed lunches, the lake walk on the board. After it, the inn is a different one, with the stove lit at four and the sledges out of the barn. The change is a single night, and this year it was the fourteenth of October.

The night

It started at about ten, as rain, and turned at midnight. By six there were twenty centimetres on the terrace and the valley had gone silent the way it does, with the sound of the river muffled and the birds gone. The photograph at the top is from the terrace at half past six, before anyone had walked on it.

The morning

• The terrace furniture went into the barn before breakfast, which was late.
• The lake walk closed for the year. The shelf is not safe under snow, and will not be until May.
• The road stayed open. It usually does, for the first snow; it is the third that closes it.

What it changes for guests

The walks list shrinks to the four valley walks, all of them safe in snow with the right boots, which we lend. The ridge path opens instead, with a head torch, for the village lights at five. The kitchen moves to the winter menu the same day, because Jonas has been waiting for it since September.

What we will do differently

Stack the wood in September. We stacked it in October this year and did it in the snow, and it is the kind of mistake you make once.

Revised 2 November: the road closed on the twenty-ninth, for a day, which is earlier than usual. The note about the third snow stands; it was the third.