We reached another couple of stages in the approach to winter.

First there started to be items in the newspapers about changing to winter tyres/tires and the various car magazines had their yearly test of winter tyres/tires,.

The rules in Finland are "simple but". Simple is that you must change to winter tyres by the 1st of December. Simple too is that the first day you are allowed to change is the 1st of November. Simple that is but for the fact that you can change to winter tyres earlier than that "if weather condtions demand it".

This has led to the commonly known statement if you are stopped by the police (and my experience of the Finnish police is that you have to be doing something seriously wrong if they stop you while *they* are moving (speed traps and alchohol road blocks excluded therefore) and hearing that you have winter tyres on 5 days ahead of the deadline isn't likely to stop them in their tracks) you just have to say that you are driving to Lapland at the weekend. What could be more "weather conditions demand it" than that?

Anyway that was one sign. The other was more mundane. For the first time since summer I had to connect my car to the electric motor/car warmer in the middle of the morning. Usually I leave it on overnight when there is a risk of frost and it is set to start heating at around 5 for two hours and then stop. Today I knew I was going to leave at 10:40 and didn't bother so at 9:30 I had to head to the car port and plug the thing in (and change the time so it would start right away).