They would trade all their tomorrows for a single yesterday

With Christmas week and my back still giving me some trouble I didn't work on the cabin this week. Instead I concentrated on getting all my belongings out of storage and safely into the basement. It was a process which started the previous week and which I expected to go through to the end of this week. In the end I had it done by late Thursday which was just as well because on Friday and Saturday it snowed none stop and I may have had difficulty pulling the weighted trailer up the hill out of Wardner to the Development.

Getting all my stuff out of storage may not seem like much of an achievement for a week's work but it is nevertheless a significant milestone. Financially, it means I no longer have to pay storage charges, which always seem to be high for what you get but, more significantly, a psychological milestone has been passed. Moving all my stuff into the house somehow seems to make the finished home suddenly much closer, more easily achievable and makes the future challenges seem easier to overcome. It is almost as if half of me has moved into the house.

My now empty storage facility on the wrong side of the tracks, which was always a bit of a worry, in Cranbrook.

The shelves of my storage room are now beginning to make it look like the SQMS's stores. Sorry about the poor quality of the photos in the basement.

I have taken some stuff out of their boxes but have left most things still packed up in order to keep the dust off them.

Some of this stuff will have to be moved while I work on the plumbing which will go along part of this wall.

The larger items are staying in the open area of the basement and, as you can imagine, they were not easy to carry down here by myself.

This pile of windsurfing equipment I had moved here earlier, in the summer.

The snow has been piling up on the deck and today I cleared it all away and rescued the scaffolding, which is on the other side of the deck. I have dismantled the scaffolding and stored it under the covered part of the deck in order to ensure it is available to use later in the winter.

Seeing all the snow on the deck has made me feel very satisfied that I designed a significant portion of the deck to be covered.

It has snowed none stop, virtually, since the day the roof was finished and locals are saying it is the heaviest snow they have had in living memory. If this really is as bad as it gets then I shouldn't have too many problems. The cabin is coping well, so is the car and so am I.

With all this snow outside I shall not be able to do much on the outside of the cabin, such as the decks, fascia and soffits (NB that I have got the spelling right at last). Next week therefore I am going to start on the wiring. For this I will need to pull a homeowners permit which authorises me to do the work myself but, at the same time disqualifies a professional electrician from helping me. I have been reading up on the codes and how to do things and I do have someone who I can go to for advice when I need it. So if, in the next photo you see of me, my hair looks a little frizzy - you'll know why.

The conditions on the ski slopes at Fernie and Kimberley are reported to be outstandingly good with off piste powder conditions the best they have been in December for years. I have been seriously tempted to take a day off and go for a day's skiing but, I cannot justify either the time or the money at the moment - shame.

I worked through Christmas and am planning on doing the same over the New Year. I thought it best to keep busy rather than take too much time off and get bored and lonely sitting in my little one room apartment by myself. Normally, I can cope with the solitude quite well. I have lots of books, some downloaded movies/DVDs and of course the internet but, at this time of year one's thoughts naturally turn to family and friends and reflections of the past and so I thought it best to keep busy. I bought a cooked roast chicken and had it with some raw (by choice) vegetables, all of which lasted me for four days. I also treated myself to some Stilton and Camembert cheese, just to ensure that it felt like a special occasion.

On Friday I went into town and dropped in at the Sally Army shop to see if they had some old sheets that I could use as dust covers for some of my stuff in the basement. There was the usual crowd of bag people there, mostly old indians with sad dark eyes, one glance into which tells you all you really need to know - that they would trade all their tomorrows for a single yesterday.