Thursday

We had to get up at 04:00 :-S  It was dark.  And cold.  And the heating hadn't come on :-S

So we put the heating on and had a cup of tea and got dressed and I made us a bowl of porridge each to sustain us on the way.

We left the house just before 05:00 :-S  Fortunately the roads weren't too icy, the temperature was around -2, it wasn't raining and the car started.

Off we headed to Manchester to drop Lindsey off at the airport.  In fact, we made extremely good time.  The roads were very quiet (oddly enough!) but also quite clear of snow and ice.  And once we crossed the Pennines there was virtually no snow and ice at all.  So we got Lindsey to the airport in good time for her flight and headed off to Sheffield to deliver me to work.

We didn't try to come over the Snake Pass.  It's usually closed when there is snow, and in any case is a winding and quite steep road in places.  It was still dark, still below or around freezing, still icy.  We came back over Woodhead instead - and found an enormous number of people apparently commuting between Sheffield and Manchester and between Manchester and Sheffield.  You might think it would be easier if everyone either swapped jobs or swapped houses!

I got to work in good time.  It took about an hour and a half to get Lindsey to the airport and a little over an hour to get me to work.  It then took nearly an hour and a half for The Builder to get home!  The Dronfield Bypass is still down to one lane and people are driving along it very slowly indeed.  It really isn't necessary to drive quite that slowly.  The roads aren't that bad.

Lindsey's plane was delayed by an hour.  We could have stayed in bed!!  Well, for a bit, anyway.

She's now back in Melbourne, where the temperature is 19d.  She left some winter kit here, although she is a bit dubious about coming back in winter.  We have pointed out that this is the coldest start to winter for decades and that November and December are usually characterised by dull, grey, damp, mild weather, but I'm not sure she believes us.  She does believe that the snow depths are highly unusual, but that's because she's seen all the fuss on the news.  And now that she's gone, the temperatures have, obviously, gone up.  It was 5 or 6 d this morning when I was getting ready for work.  I suppose we can expect flooding next as all the snow melts!!  At least we gave her some spectacular weather while she was here.  And some quite beautiful days.  The temperature might have been veryveryveryvery cold - but it is never that cold around here unless the sky is blue and the sun is shining.

I am extremely tired this morning.  I had a Japanese class last night and didn't get home until 10:00 or to bed until nearly midnight, then we were awake this morning at about 5 (unnecessarily, I might add - I blame the cat!).  I'm feeling slightly sleep deprived.  Still, tomorrow is Saturday and we have no plans so there is no need to get up particularly early.  And it's only two weeks to Christmas when I get a week and a bit off.

Freyja won second prize in the Language School raffle.  She gets a term's worth of fees repaid :-)

Paul Hudson, the BBC Weatherman for Yorkshire, says that it has been an unusually cold start to winter.  You can read his blog here