Thank you, Connie. I hope you get a proper white Christmas!

Pity my poor daughter, who took a lift to college today because the bus hadn't shown up. After the morning session, she had no more lectures, so as I cannot drive our small car in this awful weather, she decided to walk to the bus station to get a bus home.....

When the bus eventually turned up, it was the one that goes to the college to pick up students before getting back to the bus station and then our village. So it took her back to the college she'd walked from......

It was running at least forty minutes late and on the way back to the bus station it got stuck in an untreated road......

so at about 6.00pm my husband got back to Scunthorpe from his work (twenty miles away), and managed to negotiate the road where the bus was stuck, and got her from the bus and brought her home.

So she spent four and a half hours trying to get home. And it has been no more than -3 degrees C all day here.

What a story, she would probably have been better off staying home! (I'd be glad for to have a valid excuse like that to stay home and enjoy the snow :blushing:) Is she going tomorrow?

Over here the snow is melting, but then is freezes at night/morning, so all the slush freezes over. Riding my bike to the university was beyond treacherous today. The worst is the brick roads (they freeze quicker), this evening the thin coating of slush/water became ice.

I am not sending her tomorrow, she is exhausted because she is on a diet and didn't have any extra money with her to buy food while she was stood waiting at the bus station.

It is only the fact that the ice had formed (in the thaw on Saturday )on our gravel drive that allowed us to clear down to the frozen gravel, and finally make the entrance of our house safe again. My son took great delight in breaking it up with an axe!!

We are expecting a thaw by the end of the week, but the night time temps are still fit for a freezer. So more ice!

Take care on your bike, Camille, you don't want to end up with a broken bone.

What a saga! Over here, in New England, everybody has at least 1 all wheel drive vehicle and many have small pick-up trucks with plows they can mount on the front.
We still have no snow, and none forecast. It's cold finally though, so we'll have snow soon enough.

In New England you get buried in snow every year, so it's normal that you're equiped for it! I miss living in CT or VA, we never get as much snow here as there was there. Over here in the netherlands lots of snow (that doesn't melt overnight) is supposed to be a once in 5 year thing, but it's been 3 years in a row that we're getting it! No one is equiped for tons of snow, and last year all over europe it was hell, most of the airports closed, no trains, no buses, no mode of transportation available except for your own two feet. And this was because of only a foot of snow in most places! Takes more than than for the northeastern US to grind to a halt.

Well I believe in prophylactic worrying. It's amazing what preparing for the worst will do- it never comes.
If you remember your umbrella, it won't rain.
If you forget your boots, there will be lots of slush.
Or another way to look at it is as a version of Murphy's law. :rofl:

I too believe in being prepared - but there comes a point where it isn't cost effective . Having a 4x4 in a country where it rarely snows and fuel costs £1.20 a litre that's £5.40 or $ 8.65 a gallon when you can manage the rest of the year in a car that does 55 miles per gallon as opposed to the 25 of the 4x4, plus the fact that most of these vehicles cost more than a normal saloon and therefore more to insure, maintain etc- well, sometimes we just have to make the economic choice.

My beef is with the authorities which make it difficult for volunteers to help out by having crazy rules about fuel duties for off-road vehicles(tractor) being much lower than on-road vehicles, so the farmer who runs his tractor with a snow plough is told he has to use the on-road fuel, plus stump up for different insurance instead of being thanked for providing a public service.

Wow, Hedge that sucks. Both the gas prices and the restrictions.

The weather is getting ridiculous. Last wednesday in Lyon is was well below freezing and they had over 20cm of snow (almost 8 inches). I spoke to my sister this evening, and today it was a sunny 19°C! (66°F!). And tomorrow is supposed to plunge right back down to near freezing. Talk about yoyo weather, the effects of global warming are upon us.

we had a day above freezing hurrah!! Tomorrow it is set to be even warmer, but then the nights go back to sub zero.

Jonada, love your avatar photo!