Snow

Its been snowing heavily for an hour here in West London the garden is already white and I really should of spread some salt on the driveway but here I sit in pj's playing 'puter....

We have thick snow and its still coming. No way can we go out today which means I will miss something important tonight. Not happy.

I have just called my old dad in Warminster and its freezing cold and all he can see is snow. Can't even see where the road is. I am in sunny South Africa and boiling so I can't help him. But my lovely sister in law lives nearby and keeps her eye on him.

They would normally have fish and chips delivered at the sheltered accommodation where he stays today but because of the snow his fish and chips have been canceled! Oh dear.

Although I'm on the coast (severn estuary) I'm above the snow line. When it's rain in the town it's snow up here! Well at least I shouldn't get hit by a tsunami!

Talking of which, did any of you midlanders feel the earthquake?

No, Jeni when was that? If during the night I probably just put it down to DH's snoring!

Drew the curtains to a snow covered garden and roof-tops very nice to look at and picture perfect.The snow is still coming down and looks as though it is going to be very thick indeed,we have everything we need for days so all OK,looks like a soup making day if forcast for to-day and some nice homemade bread.Glass I can wear my lilac snow boots to-day and you wear your pink ones and pretend we are on magic roundabout.

Last night according to BBC. 2.9 on Rickter?scale. Around Leicester area I think

glamma I have got them on are they comfy? We still have the snow we have had all week its not moved -5, and had flurries but this afternoon we are expecting more, but it does look gorgeous. I am still looking for Ermintrude
and Zebedee

Does anyone recall schools being shut because of snow when they were children? Mr absent and I can remember making icy slides in the playground at primary school, having snowball fights and building snowmen but can't ever remember there being no school – primary or secondary – because of snow. I also recall an occasion when I was in infants' school, so younger than seven, I cried at lunchtime because the "big boys" had thrown snowballs at me. Ever practical, my mother asked why I hadn't thrown any back. I told her I didn't know how to make snowballs so after lunch she took me out into the garden and taught me. When I didn't appear at the usual time after afternoon school, poor worried mother put on her boots and coat and went racing out in the snow in search of me. She found me rolling a gigantic snowball, nearly as big as myself, slowly along the pavement on my way home.

Has everybody turned into a complete bunch of weather wimps these days?

glass Zebedee is almost certainly still in bed. [boing emoticon]

Thats why I cant find him and yes everyone is wimps now. Clever woman your Mum.

I think that was because everyone, including the teachers lived within walking distance also no central heating then.

A mere sprinkling here, and already going slushy.

I can remember going to school in bad weather and sitting at the desk wearing my coat scarf and gloves - like jeni said teachers and pupils lived within walking distance of schools then.

Thick covering of snow here, at the moment I have 2 adults and 4 children in the field next to my house some with a toboggan and the others making a very large snowman!!

I am stocked up so don't have to go out for about a week - hope its all gone by then!

I remember crying on the way home from school because the snow was over the tops of my wellies and the gap of bare skin between my wellies and my skirt was blue. Alfred Wainwright said there's no such thing as bad weather, only unsuitable clothing. He was right as far as what little girls wore in the 1950s!

I could walk to infant school (10 minutes) and primary school (25 minutes) but travelled by two tube trains to secondary school and still went during that terribly long, cold winter in the 1960s. Few members of staff or girls lived within walking distance and sometimes we were "late excused" because the trains were delayed (and on one famous occasion a cow was on the line near Rayners Lane) but there was never any suggestion that the school should be closed even when the ancient central heating was having serious wheezing problems. And didn't Boris the Blond Bombshell decide to close all bus routes in London when there was about 1 inch of snow a couple of years ago?

Bunch of wimps – definitely.

If it snowed hard during the morning our school would ring the bell three times, signalling that we would close at lunch time, but this was so that the pupils who had to travel some distance by train or bus could get home. The rest of us raced home to get the sledges out. But the next day the school would be open for business as usual and the roads and railway cleared. Even in the hard winter of 1947 when I was 6 and had had pneumonia, schools were open though I had my work sent home for me. In the winter of 63, I was travelling daily into Edinburgh and the railway was never affected in all the six weeks of 'the big freeze'.

Today it's snowing steadily. Overnight the snow just drifted lazily down and gave hardly any coverage. However, it has stepped up its efforts and I have scaled down any plans to go out.

Lilygran, I'm not surprised, then! You always have a basin full before everyone else (and it stays around longer!). We live in the South of the city on the Derbyshire border and we haven't seen any yet, but it's due to start any time now. We went over to Chesterfield yesterday and the countryside was in deep freeze but my goodness, it was pretty. Better than any Christmas card. Keep digging, Lilygran!

artygran

Someone slap me "and yes everyone is wimps now."

glass!

Yesabsent bunch of wimps is right. I know of two schools both on the outskirts of London , that announced yesterday they were closing today because of snow that hadn't started to fall. There is a bit now in London, but not awful.

Well this weather wimp is trying to work out why her lounge still feels freezing. I know it's 20, just, but I usually keep it at 23! Still it's better than the 16 it was when I emerged from from bed like a butterfly ( a very drab one) from its chrysalis !

jeni , yes did not feel the quake but heard it. Sounded like a plane in the distance.

Don't you think 'walking distance' is a lot shorter now then it was? I remember walking miles in 1963 when we had a bad winter and again in probably 1967 being one of the few who made it to work even though I lived the furthest away.

A few years ago all the dancers at Birmingham Royal Ballet made it through the snow for a show and the orchestra gradually filtered in as the shows progressed. They audience appreciated it and gave thema cheer.