Today (Monday) we have a few inches of snow and Dan's school is closed. Unfortunately Hanna's school is open so she will have to go into work, possibly on skis!

Vampire snow-witch.

On Friday it snowed quite hard from late morning onwards so that by 1.30 their was concern about the roads. Sam Pepys school closed at 2.30 and we went to collect Dan.

It didnt snow any more on Saturday and Dan stayed in bed all morning, but the ground remained covered enough to build snowmen and have snowball fights. Sharon came to play and we built a vampire snow-witch that fell down after half an hour. Dan had two bowls of snow for lunch!

Opa's Bean-boots.

Temperatures fell to minus 3 overnight and it started to snow at 9.30 on Sunday morning, then kept it up all day. Hanna and I both made a trek round the village on cross-country skis, but we couldn't get Dan outside.

We live on a bus route which is usually kept open by the gritters, but I soon found it quicker to ski on the roads than the pavements. I only saw three cars actually on the road.

I think one of the nicest things about the now is the silence. There;s almost no traffic and you can hear the soft wump, wump of the snow as you compress it with your skis.

On a wildlife note: The local collared doves are still crooning and great tits are singing as though it was spring. Both sexes of robin can sing and hold territories at this time of year, but the snow seems to call them to a truce so that several robins can come to the feeder at once.  We had a big flock of fieldfares on Cotoneaster bushes in a neighbours garden yesterday.

I hope to get out with my camera later when I go to work myself.