Here we go again

Last year, the Met Office forecast a "barbecue summer". And what happened? We had a couple of very nice weeks in May, followed by the wettest July for umpteen years and a dismal August. Those clever (and doubtless highly paid) weather people next forecast a mild winter. December turned out to be one of the coldest on record and half the country ground to a halt during the snow just before Christmas. Now we are snowed in again. This was the view from the bedroom this morning, with the Downs almost visible in the background.


I hear on the radio that Gatwick airport is closed and that it is too dangerous for buses to be run in Brighton.

There is no way I can get the car up the drive, and even if I could, the road is, of course, impassable. That means that two dinners today have been scrapped. Being the first Wednesday of the month, today should have seen the Lions' dinner meeting. We were planning a very informal affair, but because of various problems our social secretary was unable to make the arrangements with the selected restaurant. I offered to take the OB out to dinner at the Italian in the village, and we were to be joined by three others. I have just come off the phone with one of them and we have agreed not to venture out.

But we are better off than a Scottish lady I read about the other day. She and her husband live at Cape Wrath, which is either the most northerly point of the British mainland or damn near it, and she set off on 22 December to fetch the Christmas turkey from town. This involved her husband driving her 11 miles to the spot where they keep their boat. Then she sailed across the firth (estuary?) to a point where she could catch a bus into town. Unfortunately, it snowed while she was out and her husband couldn't drive to collect her. She spent Christmas and New Year living in her sister's caravan while her husband was at home, alone but for their six dogs. And a couple of walkers who called into the remote cafe the couple run - on Christmas Day. (It was that last touch that made me sceptical about the veracity of the report. What were people doing walking in such a remote spot on Christmas Day? Where had they come from and where were they going to?)