No snow ... like English snow...

Why does snow in England always cause such transport problems? How can London come to a halt just over a few inches of the stuff? How can it be that we are running out of salt/grit and many councils are having to cut back on the number of roads they can keep open? The chap we bought our latest pig ark from told us that he'd tried to get some salt so that he could clear his yard but the Builders' Merchant told him the Council had 'recalled' all the available stocks from all Builders' Merchants.

Perhaps it is because our snow is like Micawber, the mystery cat. Now you see him, now you don't.

For instance: we had all this snow at the end of last week and very pretty it was too, for a day or two. Schools closed and kids went sledging and building fabulous snowmen; parents took time off work (which they couldn't get to anyway) and played with the kids.... guilt free cos it wouldn't last for long.

Sure enough it had all gone by Saturday and the weather was warm enough to turn the automatic drinkers on for the piggies which gave us a rest from carrying around lots of buckets of water. Just for one day... it was freezing again on Sunday.

And in the evening it snowed very heavily again and looked like this within a few short hours. Very atmospheric, especially with an almost full moon, but lethally slippery under the snow.......

Thus, Monday morning saw us snowed in, again. Local schools were closed, again. The postman didn't get through, again. We walked to the village for the paper, again. But it was all very pretty, again. So we didn't really mind. I started making plans to do some baking if it continued......

Which it didn't. On Monday evening it rained, hard as it had snowed the previous evening, and washed the snow away. All that rain melting all that snow. On Tuesday many places had a month's rainfall in a day. So there was severe flooding in some areas. And that night we had several degrees of frost. So the ground froze with all that water in it. And the next day it froze too. Riding Rocco across the fields this morning was exciting - if you call slipping and sliding 'exciting'.... we quickly-as-possible returned to the safety of the roads and lanes....

Then this afternoon it started snowing heavily again and within a few hours we have several inches covering the ground once more. All very nice for our customised snow ploughs, who are developing a very handy knack of clearing large patches in their paddock. Perhaps we should investigate the possibility of loaning them out to the local council..... they're pretty effective --- and a lot better than nothing..... Oh, and I got to bake --- Fairy Cakes... with chocolate butter icing.. very tasty .. especially after Curly Coat sausage meat and bantam egg pie..... (Health warning: snow can make you fat)

As I write, however, what was falling as snow has just started falling as rain..... more water to wash away all that snow ... which, of course, if it freezes will turn the roads into ice-rinks once more....... and if it doesn't will just lead to more flooding.

So, perhaps this is why we are never really prepared for snow in England: in the space of just one week we have three relatively incapacitating snow falls quickly followed by rapid washing away of the stuff - just not worth investing in serious snow ploughs; they'd hardly be out and about before they'd be rained off..... far better to just roll over and let the weather dump its stuff on us and plan for a break from the normal humdrum routine.......

And this doesn't happen every year anyhow, so what's to plan for??