Those who have read my this journal with any regularity for a year or so are probably aware that winters at casa maywrite are a bit out of the ordinary not to say down right trying. We don't live on an actual road, let alone a street, or even at the end of a driveway, but rather at the end of a private right of way up the side of a mountain. The first portion of the right of way was paved back in Roman times, judging from the size of the pot holes, the next length is dirt, and the portion nearest the house is a grassy hillside rutted by tire tracks.

In order to escape it is necessary to drive up the grassy hill, which can't be cleared of snow properly, then down the mountainside, around two hair-pin turns. Did I mention the road is only wide enough to accommodate one vehicle at a time? Thanks to run-off from the mountain the right of way is a creek in warm weather and becomes a glacier when temperatures drop below freezing. Even though the distance isn't great we tend to spend a lot of time snowed/iced in. Last year we managed a record 70 consecutive days of captivity, from the middle of January to the end of March.

Work is no problem since it all arrives electronically. Food, however cannot currently be transmitted through a telephone wire. Our solution is to stockpile provisions during the fall and continue stockpiling for as long as can get out to the grocery. We manage pretty well but by the time the spring thaw came last year we were glad to eat something other than macaroni and cheese and tomato soup.

Indeed our situation would lend itself to one of those Golden Age isolated mansion murder mysteries except that the place isn't big enough to swing a cat, let alone boast a library for the body. And with just two of us here there wouldn't be sufficient suspects. At least the characters would be eccentric enough.