Sometimes I am truly amazed at the world we live in. We get a light fall of snow, the weather turns fresh and before you know it, the weather report is talking about “Arctic cold”. The television runs special broadcasts and the newspapers print pages of weather photos. You might be forgiven for gaining the impression that a snowman is actually more exotic than an alien.

Admittedly, minus 20 degrees Celsius is cold. Really cold, in fact. “Your paws get clammy at the very first iron you touch,” my mate Erwin admits. He's an iron bender and iron benders are anything but nesh. But when you have to bend cold metal carefully into shape with nothing but your own two hands, not even an XXL flask of hot tea is going to help in the long run. Metal-bending and reinforcement work has been suspended on our site for the time being.

And our concrete factory is also taking a break just now. Unfortunately, you simply cannot do any concreting when the temperature's below zero; it only works down to just above zero. Well, you could, of course, “house in” the really urgent structures; in other words put a tent over them and heat them so the concrete sets properly. But we are making good time and have enough other things to be getting on with. At the moment, we are laying cable lines, supply and disposal pipes. That's something you can do in cable channels that have already been dug whether or not there's frost. We can also oil and do maintenance work on our machinery fleet. Because everyone here on the site is quite clear about one thing: snow and frost may hinder our work, but even the hardest winter cannot stop us.

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