Whitey

The day dawned fine after the 9mm of rain yesterday. The sun was up, hardly a cloud in the sky and little or no wind. Bit parky though! Dossed about - my excuse to let the birds have a good feed early, after a cold night. (Really went and had a bath). Opened the garden nets about 10am and caught 7 birds of 5 species pretty quickly; the second Wren of the year was a surprise extraction. By midday the wind had got up and the wind chill forced the temperature down. Time to furl. Shortly after, the snow started to fall, gently at first. Within the hour, a gritter went up our road, which is used as the unofficial northern by-pass!

Had to go to town via the surgery. Got togged up, checked for my 'bus pass and set off the 100 yards to the bus stop. It was snowing moderately but the NE wind was blowing hard and the snow/shrapnel was coming in at 15 degrees to the horizontal. There was a young lady snow man at the bus stop; we don't have a shelter and she had to have been there less than ten minutes 'cos we get six buses an hour to town. After just three minutes standing there, I had to rake an inch of snow off the back of my neck. The driver didn't see my pass - he thought I looked old enough (i.e. a good 60 years old!) even though he could just about see my face behind the snowed up specs.

A quick gallop into the surgery to drop off a 'scrip and back to the bus stop. Here things are civilised, not like in the country, and I was able to shelter in the lee of the 'bus shelter for five minutes or so. Surprising what a little bit of snow does - everyone suddenly jumps into their car and, hey presto, a big traffic jam on the main road going into town. It took us about 25 stop-starts to get to the first set of traffic lights. However, once there, the traffic flowed.

As I got off the 'bus the snow eased but the wind continued, unabated. I passed a woman just as her umbrella inverted itself. Business over, I made my way to the 'bus station. By now the 'buses were in chaos and behind schedule. The one we boarded turned out to be late and the one that all the school kids would now be on. More delays as we weaved our way in and out of parents' parked cars and "lollipop people" ushering crocodiles of middle school deserters across the road. By the time we got "home", another later bus had overtaken us. The snow had melted on the pavements and had now turned to sheet ice. 

I spent almost all the rest of the day going through IPMR with a new 'C' ringer and setting up his computer ready for his first birds.