Lights out time

It's snowing hard again. Supposed to be the coldest night so far for snow-covered Britain, colder than Moscow. Maybe eventually colder than the North Pole (did I really hear that on the news tonight? Sounds most unlikely).

Visibility is much reduced; the unlovely distant horizon of Gateshead has disappeared. Even hideous blot-on-the-landscape tower block Vale House has had its edges smoothed and softened.

All that anyone talks about is the weather, one of our favourite national subjects generally, I know, but worse this time, much worse. Media coverage has closed our borders; nothing much else exists in the world except British weather - and the road salt crisis. There was a much-repeated news item on the BBC today that involved footage of a gritter wagon being loaded with road salt, and some people pushing a car. Zzzzzz.....

It's wonderful, anyway, this wintry whiteout. Of course, I have the luxury of not having to drive/walk to work, or even go out further than a few yards from the back door, plus a dog that doesn't want to walk even that far now that the snow reaches her shoulders, and a fridge and a freezer that have kept me going without having to dig the car out to risk a trip to a supermarket. I might have to trek to the corner shop tomorrow, though, because I'm getting down to the permafrost of rhubarb in the freezer, and that scary whole trout that Lynn gave me ages ago.

Millie and I gaze out of the attic window at the swirling snowflakes. She thinks her private thoughts ("did she mention trout?"); I think about the deep, deep snowfall of 1963 that kept us in our boarding school, minus the day pupils, milk deliveries or letters from home, completely cut off from the outside world for 3 whole days. We still had the compulsory daily walk in full uniform, in snow up to our (bare, chapel-hardened) knees, forbidden to throw snowballs or evince any outward sign of enjoyment, but it felt like fun.

This feels like fun too. Want to hear my story of the gritter wagon? Well, it all began when the first snowfall - now was that a Thursday? no, it was a Wednesday........ zzzzz.....