I had an e-mail from Dad on Thursday enquiring if we were snowed in. It seems that the hysterics in which the British media indulge whenever there is a hint of normal winter weather had even made it as far as the States. Just like last year, the weather forecasters were predicting six feet of snow, drifts the size of the Telecom Tower in London, and driving conditions akin to a skating rink. They prophesised that cars and lorries would become stuck in the drifts and drivers would be forced to abandon their vehicles never to see them again until the Spring thaw, sometime in June. In short, the end of civilisation as we know it. The reality, when it came on Thursday, was again very similar to last year - a smattering of snow amounting to about 5 cm (2 inches). However, this year it did indeed drift in the wind and in our back garden we would have been foolhardy to attempt to scale the six inch drift it created.

Naturally, the whole of Britain shuts down when it snows. I don’t really understand what this is all about as we used to get a fair bit of snow each winter and, while it was sometimes worth a day off school (particularly when we lived in Radway and no one would know how bad it was there), by the following day the roads were clear and it was back to normal. This time, schools shut down, businesses advised their employees not to attempt to get to work nor even to venture outside for fear of frostbite and/or snow blindness. Some captain of industry was on the television bemoaning the British attitude to snow and the effect it had on the economy – he estimated the disruption cost something in excess of £400 million for Thursday alone. Of course, the result was a delightful traffic free day for those of us who ignored the advice, threw caution to the wind and took our lives in our hands.

Friday there was more snow but it was of the soaking wet variety which looks pretty but is, in reality, just rain. The roads were fine but you could see that those motorists who had ventured out were still panic-stricken. The white-knuckle gripping of the steering wheel as they hunched forward with their faces within two inches of the windscreen peering out into the white as they inched along at fifteen miles an hour with a queue of forty-seven cars behind them was, perhaps, an indication that they were not particularly comfortable driving in these conditions.

This morning (Saturday), our driveway is virtually clear, the temperature is well above freezing and the great winter storm of 2007 is but a distant memory. What a performance. And then I see on the BBC web site this morning how New York (and, perhaps, the rest of New England for all I know) has indeed had a bucket load of snow which makes our predicament quite ridiculous in comparison.

I suppose the only one who took advantage of the storm was Ms Playchute who revealed to me the following. On Friday afternoon she took Molly for a walk around the 84 mile loop (up the road and up the hill, across several fields down to another road and eventually, after about an hour and a bit, back to Byfield). I know – she was foolish even to attempt such an expedition. And, as she set out, the snow started in earnest and, naturally, it was blowing into her face the whole way round. However, she was prepared for the Arctic conditions with seventeen layers of clothes, scarves, hats and gloves – the full Monty. As she is trudging across the field at the top of the hill, all of a sudden she is boiling hot – and not merely due to her exertions in trudging through the snow across the fields. So, what does she do? What any woman in her situation would do no doubt. In her words:

Well, there I am, up on the ridge facing into the blizzard, knee deep in snow, gloves and hat yanked off, coat thrown open, sweater, shirt and vest pulled up and steaming belly bared to the icy blast. “Yup,” I think, “menopause,” and I laugh hysterically into the wind. “Be positive,” I say to myself, “think of it as a 'power surge.'” (I read that in a Times Supplement article - HA!) I plod on, shouting to the dog she's a lucky bitch to miss out on such delights and wondering if I should go so far as to stick snowballs under my armpits.

And finally, a story from the BBC web site which just goes to show that the bad guys are not always as bad as they might have been portrayed:

Yours, snug in our igloo

Greg

I feel like my body has gotten totally out of shape, so I got my doctor's permission to join a fitness club and start exercising. I decided to take an aerobics class.

I bent, twisted, gyrated, jumped up and down, and perspired for an hour. But, by the time I got my leotards on, the class was over.

My friend's husband is always telling her that housekeeping would be a snap if only she would organize her time better.

Recently he had a chance to put his theory into practice while his wife was away. When I popped in one evening to see how he was managing, and he crowed, "I made a cake, frosted it, washed the kitchen windows, cleaned all the cupboards, scrubbed the kitchen floor, walls and ceiling and even had a bath."

I was about to concede that perhaps he was a better manager than his wife, when he added sheepishly, "When I was making the chocolate frosting, I forgot to turn off the mixer before taking the beaters out of the bowl, so I had to do all the rest."

Our family owned restaurant is the setting for many of our discussions about how to handle the customer who asks, "What's good tonight?" Obviously, we would never serve anything we didn't think was good. I braced myself one Saturday night when I heard the dreaded question posed to my husband.

He calmly replied, "Anything over $13.95."

A lady opened her refrigerator and saw a rabbit sitting on one of the shelves.

"What are you doing in there?" she asked.

The rabbit replied: "This is a Westinghouse, isn't it?"

The lady replied, "Yes..."

"Well," the rabbit said, "I'm westing."

The shipwrecked mariner had spent several years on a deserted island. Then one morning he was thrilled to see a ship offshore and a smaller vessel pulling out toward him.

When the boat grounded on the beach, the officer in charge handed the marooned sailor a bundle of newspapers and told him, "With the captain's compliments. He said to read through these and let us know if you still want to be rescued."

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