Snow angels everywhere

Hello, and a belated Happy 2009 to anyone who happens to read this ;-))

We are experiencing a real "cold snap" here at the moment!! It snowed overnight on Sunday so we are currently blanketed with the white stuff. Usually any snow melts away pretty quickly BUT at the moment it is SO cold that the snow is still with us. For the first time in years overnight temperatures have been around
-15C for the past couple of nights (and getting colder!), and it hasn't been above approx. -4C during the day! brrrrrrrrrr

It is lovely and bright & sunny during the day, but bloody cold.......and REALLY cold (and extremely slippery) cycling to work in the morning. It all looks picture perfect but, bloody hell, it is not nice to actually get out and about in. I had a real "ice-cream headache" by the time I got to work this morning - must remember to wear my hat on the way home tonight!

Every night in a lot of big cities there are volunteers out and about on the streets searching for homeless people to make sure they have a temporary roof over their heads and are not sleeping outside; the onboard toilets on some trains are out of service because all the water is frozen; and all those ice skating freaks are beside themselves (and waiting, waiting, waiting to see if an Elfstedentocht (11 city ice skating race) is possible for the first time since 1997!!)

Alli xxx