‘How can the weather be so bad there that I can hear it through the phone?’

Thunder cracks behind a far-off mountain even though it’s still too light to see any lightning, as if trying to answer Chelsea’s question for me. ‘It’s awful. We don’t have storms like this down in London. Apparently it’s a blizzard coming in from Scandinavia that’s hitting land right at the corner of Aberdeenshire, only about twenty miles from here. People at the market have been talking about it for days but I didn’t think it was going to be this bad.’

‘It sounds awful.’

‘I’m going to go and have a look around. I’ve already lost at least one tree, probably more judging by the amount of creaking wood I can hear, and whatever’s in the shed where that roof came from needs to be protected from the elements. I’ll talk to you later, okay?’

‘Leah, be careful,’ she calls after me as I hang up.

I shove my arms into a hoodie and shrug a waterproof coat over the top of it, pulling it tight around me. I yank my welly-boots on and brace myself to go outside.

The blizzard slams into me from all sides as I spit out a mouthful of snow and pull my hood back up from where it’s flapping behind me, trying to make a break for freedom from the rest of the coat.

The wind tears the gate out of my hands as I go to open it, and I have to chase it until it clatters against the fence on the opposite side of the lane and drag it back to secure the latch. I pull my hood tight and shove my hands into my pockets as I trudge down the lane, the depth of the snow making it hard to walk. I told Iain and the other two workers not to come in today, even though there’s still so much to do and we really need all hands on deck. According to the news, there’s transport disruption across the whole east side of Scotland, there are trees down across roads and railways, and it seemed too dangerous to work amongst trees when the wind is this strong.

I tell myself it’ll be better tomorrow while I peer into the Nordmann fir field, the wind banging the heavy wooden gate against the post like it weighs nothing, clattering with every gust. Two trees are down and one of the tallest ones is leaning precariously against its neighbour. It’ll be extra work to remove the fallen and damaged ones before Saturday and make sure it’s safe again, but there aren’t as many casualties as I expected given how bad it sounds out here.