Snow!

We had about 3 weeks, in our area, of snow on the ground. This is very unusual in Southern England. It has been much worse in other parts of the country. It's only just been rained away but I hear there may be some more today. For weeks, it made driving difficult as Britain does not have the equipment or supplies of grit and salt to deal with prolonged freezing conditions and snow on the roads. Airports were closed for a while, even the Cairngorm Ski Centre in Scotland closed because of too much snow, which made us all chuckle.

So people took time of work or worked from home if they could and we hunkered down to wait it out. Those that didn't take those sensible measures and ventured out in their cars often had bad accidents or found themselves stranded in their cars all night waiting to be rescued. One group of shoppers found themselves unable to leave the John Lewis department store, so bedded down in their bedding department overnight. Sounds like fun!

There were so many beautiful and unusual sights though, we couldn't resist going out and seeing the effects of the snowfall.

Even if it meant traipsing through knee-deep snow.

Out on the playing field behind our house.

My washing line. I've never seen anything like this in Britain before. Canada, yes, but not here. The most snow since 1964, apparently.

The icicles from our bedroom window. One of them grew to 4 feet long before dropping, which I thought pretty impressive! Not sure if that says something bad about the insulation in our roof though.

Winters in Britain could be interesting in the future if precipitation continues to increase as some climate researchers are predicting. It's all to do with the jet stream shifting south and us getting Iceland's weather. Which I wouldn't mind, if we also had the hot geysers to bathe in. LOL!