The temperature touches minus 7 as we head back to the hotel after our evening meal, frost forming fern patterns on car windscreens and turning pavement puddles into treacherous mini skating rinks. But the air is clean and crisp, the moon is bright and we breathe in the tastes of proper winter for the first time in a long time. By first light next morning the snow is falling and the cobbled streets have a covering of pure white as workers shuffle to offices and factories, huddled inside heavy overcoats and hidden behind hats and scarves. For us this is a bonus: we hadn’t expected to see snow this early…