Stormy Weather

[Anna]

Thickest hoar frost I have ever seen this morning. Here are the silver birches opposite me covered in it.

[Panjandrum]

Uncle Monty, I know the Mendips well and, in particular, the area around Burrington Combe, Ebbor and Cheddar Gorges. The only thing against it is, as you yourself remarked, the nearly constant mist in winter months, or whenever there has been particularly heavy rain followed by spells of high pressure. However, on the flip side, it is the landscape photographer's dream.

[eighthobstruction]

A lot of people retire to Devon and Somerset....only to find it is extremely damp

[Eudaimonia]

Morning Sal!

Glad to hear you're nice and toasty inside and not braving the elements. Tonight, I went out on the town in a dress with a short coat and nothing but light, sheer stockings....agh! What was I thinking! I was walking around Columbus Circle and the Time-Warner Center and the wind was whipping through the buildings like a knife. Try again tomorrow, sigh.

32F right now-- thank goodness for my space heater! I get chilled easily, so it's always nice to have a little extra spot-heat when I want it. Good luck getting your presents in order; if you can think of anything music-related for my six-year-old nephew, I'd love to hear it! I could use a few good ideas right now, ha.

Cheers, ~E.

[salymap]

Morning Euda and everyone. Not a good start with my computer playing up badly. I've done two complete reboots [always feel silly saying that] and it is dear old Windows doing its interminable 'configurations' etc
Still cold, still haven't been out, Devon relis due tomorrow so must tidy/clean up today. Good luck with weather problems friends in the North/Scotland. More snow due in Kent too, if it makes you feel better about the 'soft South. bws salymap

[Chris Newman]

Morning saly and everyone, brrr outside. I forgot to put the salvage out this morning, tut. The breeze was too cold last night. Must get rid of it before Christmas. Sorry to hear that your 'puter is playing up, saly. If it wants to configure, best to let it get on with it and have a cup of tea and listen to a couple of nice CDs. Mine was frustrating yesterday. The picture kept closing after fifteen minutes: annoying as I use it instead of a TV. Then my lodger remembered he had adjusted the performance as part of our efforts to save electricity. It turned out this automatically changed the "sleep" time which we subsequently adjusted so that TV, films, operas can be watched without having to wake it up by nudging the mouse. I have put a couple more pictures on troovi for you.
bws
Chris

[eighthobstruction]

My son is [I suppose you'd call him ] an apprentise builder [self employed ] and has lost £500+ through not being able to work....-6C at moment not much chance of work this week, as you cannot get on rooves in this ice....

....means he's at home all the time and I'm running out of things to do, to make me appear to be a hard working good example....

[mercia]

More snow due in Kent too

haven't got rid of the first lot yet - boo-hoo

[salymap]

Neither have we in London/Kent Pavements are the problem, roads seem okay judging by the traffic, pavements like death traps for the unwary. Gardens still have drifts, bird bath solid ice. Time for some warmer weather.

Chris, off to troovi tolook at your new pics. bws all.

[Mahlerei]

Morning all

More snow in Kent? Oh, I hope not, as I've only just managed to get the study dry after last week's thaw. Coldest winter I've experienced, and I've been here since 1985.

[salymap]

Morning Mahlerei, That's what I heard. 1985, Huh, been in this area, if not this bungalow since there were no buses running here and coal and milk were delivered by horse-drawn carts. 1947 was pretty bad. I was very young and had just discovered the RAH and rehearsals with soloists in fur coats and grumpy orchestras trying to get warm in the gas-lit RAH [and the bar] 1963 was bad too but AFAIR the bad weather in both cases didn't start 'til Christmas week.

[Mahlerei]

Hi Sal

How people managed without central heating I'll never know. Buns snuggled deep in their hay, not stirring. what a life, eh?

[Mary Chambers]

I remember both 1947, when I was six, and 1963, when I was a student in London. Walking to school (no question of school closing, or of not going) with snow over and into the tops of my wellies, no central heating either at school or at home in 1947. In London 1963 the heating broke down and there was no water except from a standpipe in the street. I was young then, though!

(I've said all this before :))

PS The street where they put the standpipe was several floors down.

[Uncle Monty]

I hope I'm not swamping the board with these, but this is such extraordinary weather, and it's possible nothing like it will be seen again.

This was taken half an hour ago, looking south over the Somerset Levels, with Glastonbury Tor in the middle. The point about the whiteness in these shots is that NONE OF IT IS SNOW!! It's just extreme hoar-frost.



This is a main road to Wells. Again, it's all frost:



And this is our frosty village:

[Chris Newman]

In 1963 I was 16 and the schools were closed for weeks. We spent a lot of the time ice-skating on ponds and tobogganing. At first the roads in West Sussex were impassable. My father's lorries were commandeered to transporting snow one way and grit in the opposite direction. The police and local council noticed he had a tractor with a shovel on front.

"Can you spare a driver for snow clearing?" they said.

"I have no spare drivers. They are all driving grit trucks. My son can drive it but has not taken his test."

"Never mind. If he can drive, he can do it."

So I was commandeered too and was given permission to "break the law". The first day a policeman "rode pillion" with me and showed me priority roads. Usually I either shoved snow to one side or lifted it with the shovel and tipped it out of the way. According to the policeman I "passed with flying colours" and was allowed to work alone. What he never let on was that as I lifted a shovel-full of seemingly flat snow drift up he had to shout "Whoa!!" in my ear as I raised a corner of a Mini into the air with my tractor shovel under one of its wheels. No damage was done and after establishing that no-one was trapped in it we cleared it partially by hand to let future drivers know it was there. By then the really heavy snow that had caused massive drifting had stopped but the incredible freeze lasted for months and so the snow remained in place. Frozen birds were a frequent sight. The intense cold penetrated so deep that men digging holes in roads or on building sites hit frozen ground at 5 or 6 feet down in June or July. School restarted once the coal and oil got through: just as well as I had my O-Levels in May.