Winters here for real !!

Winter, at least here in the UK, has finally arrived. How do I know?. The Snow has fallen and everyone has come to a grinding halt - LOL

The last few days have been something else. Wednesday was really a fore taste of what was to come. The wind was strong and blustery - my big ladder (which is fairly heavy) was blown down - which has never happened to me before. The air temperature was biting. The rain almost horizontal.

Yesterday (Thursday) was worse. The snow fall had already started.The wind was even stronger (my Transit Van got blown across the road several times - it's a good job I slowed down - but not everyone). The scary thing was that the Weather Man (or more accurately Weather Woman) actually go the forecast right. Snow, biting winds, drifting - the full set (at least for Britain) As I slowly made my way from one job to another. Snow being blown quite literally sideways. A big heavy van buffeted about as though it had no weight at all.


But within this weather there was some beauty. On the way home, I drove across the Lincolnshire Wolds from a little village called North Kelsey back towards Scunthorpe.

Dusk was just causing the sky to darken. The clouds were dark and forbidding, full of snow. There were small dark blue patches of clear sky - but off to the right as I looked, there were more heavy, laden clouds blowing in from the coast.

As I drew closer to Brigg (a Market Town on the way home), the leaden clouds started to glow red. The red turned from orange to gold. It was really quite beautiful. The reason ?

The town motto of Scunthorpe is "The Heavens Reflects our Labours". Being a Steel town one of the processes the works carries out ids the tipping of Slag. This is a by product of the steel making process - and, having seen this in this in the flesh it is quite frightening, the slag is poured into pits where it is allowed to cool, and then it is broken up and sold onto other companies. When this is done during the day - you can see nothing. But at night!

Some nights in the middle of summer - with the mixture of dusk and reflections - awesome. But last night was something else. Looking out over the wolds, over the head of Brigg and towards Scunthorpe. The gold reflections in the tufts of cloud - wonderful.

Got home to find my Son (in the dark) running about in the snow - going absolutely mad.

This morning - as far as the kids are concerned - it was even better. The snow had fallen again over night. there must by at least 6 inches of snow the ground. When I took Laura to School the was a complete Cannonade of snowballs. It seemed as though every child in the Playground was throwing a Snow ball. And there was the noise. A School yard at the beginning of the day is never a quite place, but today. The squeals of joy at the snow was unbelievable.

The weather forecast? More Snow - but it's hard to believe that at the moment. Looking out my left, out of the window, and the Clear Skies, and the bright sun is glistening off the lying snow. But we shall see