Today

Having a go at snowing today. The temperature doesn't seem low enough and there's been no long cold spell. However, on my way home tonight, it got worse and worse - visibility shocking and, once I got to Holcombe, some snow was lying. Don't think it will last.

The Met office warned us that, because of the antics of the North Atlantic Oscillator, we would be having a shocking winter. Doesn't seem to be true - a few chilly days and a poor attempt at does not a bad winter make.

In My Day

I remember the great cold winter of 1962/3. The first part was a prolonged period of freezing smog. This was before the clean air act, so London was still full of coal fires churning out sooty smoke which mixed with the fog to produce air which killed babies and old people.

I was doing a paper round at the time. I used to cycle from Upper Norwood to the paper shop in Thornton Heath. Each day I saw the frosty particles grow like stalactites on the garden walls. Sometimes I was too scared to actually ride my bike, it was so icy.

On boxing day 1962 it started to snow and snow and snow. I now really couldn't ride my bike. So I had to get up even earlier and walk, pushing the bike (it was very helpful in actually carrying the papers) down to Thornton Heath at about 5.30 in the morning.

On December 30th (a Sunday) it really began to blizzard. I got to the shop at some godawful time and picked up my bag. Even in 1962 Sunday papers were full of supplements so were always heavy. What was worse was having to scrape away snow from letter boxes and thrust the papers in, section by section. Why did so many people have these doors with letter boxes at ground level? It took ages and some papers got damaged (a fact that some customers actually complained about).

Eventually, two and a half hours later, I staggered back to the shop, frozen. "Don't stay, luv, you're dripping on the mat", says my sympathetic boss. I left and trudged back up the hill, longing for a cup of hot tea and my bed.

No such luck; when I got home I found that the snow had brought a tree down over the road, blocking the traffic (see blog 22/5/2005) and I simply had to help with carting away the logs.

It'll take more than a flurry of poor wet snow to stop me doing what I want.