Across the pond

Deeply disappointed when I opened the curtains this morning. To sign of the expected blizzard down here in Dorset. There were a few show flakes drifting past and the drive has a sprinkling of snow but the fields on Stonebarrow Hill are still coloured green, the sand on the beach is still light brown and the sea is calm down here. Small waves are lapping the beach not hurling pebbles all over the car park.

Since I had a morning away the broadcasting media and the computer it was not til lunchtime that I found out what was happening in the rest of the country. Kathy rang from Colchester could not get to her job I Ipswich because trains and the buses were not running. Holly rang from Hampsead Heath to say to say, ‘The schools are closed and all of London is here’, even more crowded than the summer bank holiday. The grandchildren were having the time of their on their snow boards. The snow on the heath, she said, was the deepest she has even seen, and she has spent most of her forty years within walking distance of Hampstead Heath.

When I finally got to the computer I discovered that Holly was not over-egging the story. Weather experts were saying it was the heaviest snow fall since 1947, when I remember that I had a month off school, though that had much to do with the fact that the school had run out of coal to fuel the boilers.

The British media has, of course, risen to the occasion with lots of pics and videos and personal accounts of successful and unsuccessful attempts to get to work. And just to prove that they know how to get to the internet generation both The Times and The Guardian have started snow blogs!