Winter Wonderland

Thursday evening last, it started to snow -- blizzarding enough that Karen's evening call carers got lost on the way back, took the wrong turn and ended up stuck in the snow on a farm road, and had to be towed out by tractor.

Friday, the snow was drifted deep against the front door, and going out to the village shop, it was calf-deep in places where it had drifted. A definite work from home day.

Saturday, pulled my boots on, and yomped the footpaths across the fields into town to do some shopping, on an exhilarating crisp winter's morning, where the long grass was sticking through the snow like through blown sand on a beach. Traffic was horrid in town, and for the return journey, when I went part of the way along the main road, the snow had clearly turned to slush and been refrozen, horrible going. So on the last, off-road, leg, when I was getting tired and footsore, when confronted by a pitbull thing, I just kept on going. This unsetled it, and when I got within about six feet, in pronked off and started circling, despite being yelled at by its human. I eventually had just to grab the thing by the harness and wait for the lead to be clipped back on.

Deep and crisp and even

Sunday, I thought it would be a good idea to clear the drive -- but under what looked like nigh virgin snow there was a thick layer of ice. Monday, worked from home again, did some clearing -- though the main bus-route through the village was still thick with ice (no gritting done whatsoever). Tuesday, discover that the other road through the village was clear, so very gingerly make the short drive onto the clear road and the long main-road detour to work. Head home after lunch, expecting the other end of the village to be as clear as the way I went in the morning -- to find a horrible scary drive.

Worked from home the rest of the week, probably getting more done than had I gone in. Yesterday afternoon wheeled the bike out to the main road, then cycled to the nearest supermarket for some last minute food shopping. The main roads were clear, but some of the side roads near the supermarket were sheet ice (one gentle slide to my knees while wheeling over that on the way back).

Today, the thaw was setting in, but there was still snow lying morning and evening -- the first white Christmas I can remember, certainly in the 20+ years living here. the main road was clear, and in the close, the ice was soft and breaking into slush where cars were driving -- but some of the pavements (especially uncleared driveways) were solid slippery sheet ice. One old gent visiting the family for the day managed to get stuck for lack of traction, until I helped him.

An end of winter

After a couple of weeks with plenty of snow, including heavy falls Thursday night, which made the homeward journey less than fun, Friday dawned grey and slushy, and revealed a newcomer to the neighbourhood, a ginger and white just-past-kitten that took refuge from a passing car by treeing itself in the plum tree, to the disgust of the birds trying to use the feeder.

Kitten in a tree

By evening, roads were dry, and although there was some frost on the windscreen when driving home from visiting friends (and being on the road at epoch time 1234567890), the weather was clearly on the turn.

Saturday started cold, but by midday it was bright and sunny enough that I didn't want heavy gloves or my jacket zipped up while cycling. Snow was clearly on the retreat to corners where shade lingered all day.

An end to winter

Taking the car out for shopping and filling up, I could see that just a few miles made quite a difference -- the higher ground south of Royston was still snow covered, even on fields with a slight southern aspect, like the village green at Reed (where the roads were also still thick with slush).

Snow

So, it's being another proper winter. Monday, Thursday and Friday, snow lying -- today even falling -- first thing; but roads essentially beaten clear by late morning, though still wet. Still, it's easier to stay at home and remote into the office when I'm working on stuff that just requires getting into coding haze.

We coped a lot better in the winters 20+ years ago -- like 1986, where I first became aware of the village I now live in, by walking through it in a blizzard and hard sub-zero temperatures, on the 1st of March, as part of the local Oxfam walk that year. Then we drove up from Stevenage for the day, without any trauma to stick in the memory.

This year it's been barely freezing, if at all, with the snow quickly becoming slush -- and yet the roads snarl up.

Old-fashioned winter

After a dull near-freezing weekend, there was snow lying on Monday morning, in a day of sunshine and showers.

Tuesday, bright, sunny and sub-zero; so when we went on the weekly lunchtime walk, rather than staying on paved ways, we came to the bridlepath that has been too muddy all last year, and it was white with firm trodden-down snow. So we made an unexpected off-piste diversion.

Wednesday was back to about freezing, and dull, leaving lots of slush in shaded places; today, the same.

Snow

The snow arrived overnight, and I woke up to something like this

The view from the bedroom window

So I decided not to go to the office.

Not inclined to drive

This meant that I ended up working an 11 hour day, with only a few interruptions, as a result of “eating our own dog-food”, with GotoMyPC, and related GotoMeeting and GoToWebinar (so I worked when had I been at the office I would just have been passively consuming an all-hands presentation). *sigh*

The road less travelled

Snow started as I was getting dressed, and the cold overnight meant that for once it was settling. So I took the long way around on the main roads to work.

It was obvious from the difference between the two lanes on the radial A road quite how much more traffic goes into Cambridge than comes out; the inbound lane was almost dry; the outbound white with tracks, so slow going.

Slower yet when White Van Man arrives behind me and stays about a length away, so I keep my speed down to allow for his stopping distance as well as my own.

Which part of “Keep your <expletive deleted> distance!” don't they get?

Snowflakes

Today, it's been bright, with the occasional snow flurry - very different from the grey and sleety weather we had been promised; and while going out to top up screenwasher-bottles and tyre pressures on the cars, I saw a number of actual hexagonally symmetric snowflakes for the very first time. The first that caught my eye was a perfect little star shape maybe 5mm across, but looking at the rest of the dusting of snow, there were more.

Usually snow comes as big fluffy flakes, or dusty crystals, or even coarser ones, more like the fancy sugar granules for coffee, such as accumulated on my windscreen one afternoon this week.

Crying Wolf

We've had some snow this week; a couple of mornings I had to brush some off the cars first thing. Then, according to all the weather forecasts last night was supposed to be bad with accumulating snow, and today worse.

And we had no snow before bedtime last night, just a tiny dusting on car roofs this morning, and flurries that were more sleet than snow until they stopped during the day.

The Met Office still seems to be overreacting after Oct '87, which is a bad thing - I can hardly trust their bad forecasts now.

Winter wonderland

Saturday, in bright sunshine, I was almost tempted to try cycling into town, but noticed enough movement of trees to play it safe. And that was a wise move - the wind was raw and unpleasant even for walking.

Sunday, there was ice on the pond, except where covered. The winds was still raw, and with snow showers, we decided not to bother with the jazz concert in town we'd got tickets for on spec.

This morning snow, but no ice on the pond (only a slight thickening of slush) and it felt much milder, with less wind. Snow showers still, but the snow is melting - but will probably make it an early night on general principals.

What a week

This morning I looked out and there was snow!

Patchy, only on the grass and cars, but snow nonetheless.

That wasn't on the program, at least according to the weather forecast the night before.

So take the long way around to work on main roads that won't be seriously icy (as opposed to the ones where last night's rain would have turned into streams that freeze on the road, to face two interviews (incl. pre- and post- meetings), and another meeting that seemed to be saying that our deadline was now moved up another 2 weeks, so they had two weeks in which to figure out if we'd finished or not.

So, after 4 interviews this week, 4 last, hardly any progress because all the team were tied up in various interview activities, this went down like a lead balloon. I'm having a weekend off this weekend, 'cause I don't think I will have another until 25-Dec.

Snow

By the time it was getting dark on Friday, it was almost all gone. Only on well shaded ground, not touched by feet or wheels - such as the grassy areas near the Madingley Park&Ride - was there still a snow cover, and there it was thin, if white and otherwise untouched. Yesterday, there were still a few greyish heaps on Parker's Piece where the thaw had increased the dirt to snow ratio considerably.

Snow

Roads now mostly clear - only the first couple of hundred yards through the village, and the approach to the car-park at work are still skating rinks, snow pounded to ice, and shaded so that yesterday's bright sun had no effect. I'm glad in a way that on Monday, having to pass an oncoming bus on a very narrow strip of road that I damaged my nearside front tyre enough that I needed to replace it - that and the one that was getting down to the worn out stage replaced, I now have two new tyres on my drive wheels, which is very reassuring in these conditions.

The ice/frozen slush is an inch thick on the pond - so I've had to saw it (a folding pruning saw does very nicely) rather than doing the usual saucepan of hot water to melt an air hole. Wet windy and mild - more Mediterranean conditions - forecast; and it's already overcast in anticipation.

Snow

It was a re-run. What the Met Office forecast as showers turned into a blizzard - so when told by my boss to go home, I did, and the snow was pelting down so hard that I had to have the wipers on full to keep the screen clear. Even clearing the windows before getting in was a bit of a Forth Bridge job.

It took an hour including one false start and loop-around to avoid a road closed by some possible accident. On the main A road, there were a couple of miles where there was nothing else going my way, which was eerie.

Unfortunately it was by then the wrong A road for the main-road route, so I had to make a right turn into country lanes across the traffic fleeing Cambridge, and then crawling over the ups and downs around the Bourne Brook, and the threat of an unwanted tobogganing moment on a down-hill. Not helped when at the top of the descent, I could see a Merc fishtailing at the bottom, when I was wanting to be using that bit of the road in a minute. And each time the chap ahead of me signalled he had reached his own drive, someone else would join the road ahead of me.

Fortunately when I had to cross the next A road, the stream out of Cambridge had left a nice gap that I could slide through; and when I got home, to a power cut, power came on shortly thereafter - and after another couple of minute long blackouts - remained stable from the time it got really dark.

Snow

The threatened arrival of winter finally happened. A couple of inches of snow fell overnight, melting and refreezing on the car, but being barely rigid not-quite-slush on tne pond. As soon as I got on to the main road out of the village, the roads were clear, but I took the long way round by the 'A' roads, just to be sure. With the usual slight haze over snow, the horizon was pink all the way round, until the sun finally showed at a little before 08:00 (mornings haven't improved anywhere near as much as evenings, with sunset yesterday at 16:36, almost an hour better than the worst).

The clear roads are certainly a contrast to the snowfall a year ago that started during the day, and left all the roads deeply covered - even the main roads were packed snow, with crawling bumper-to-bumper traffic. That time I took the country route home - early - so as to be travelling against the main flow, and only having to worry about whether I'd be able to get up some of the slopes. More snow is forecast for this afternoon, so I hope it's not a re-run.