That’s what I get for waiting. Just a week ago I took this picture to show the dramatic contrast with the same weekend exactly a year ago.

The only way out the same time last year…behind a tractor

According to the weatherman 1 December was to be the start of the meteorological winter but although the temperature was dropping, after the warmest November on record, there was still an odd mix of seasons on show in the garden. Geraniums and roses, winter jasmine and butterflies, brambles and bluebell shoots.

Yesterday it changed dramatically. Which must have been a cruel shock for the wildlife. Although there was just a frosting of snow at Pond Cottage the M8 seized up and now the weather forecast sounds horribly like a repeat of last year.  So far it is still possible to get up the lane without needing a tractor to sweep the snow away but will Ray get the shed finished before the winter blockade begins? He wants to stop diesel freezing in the tank like it did last January.

The snow just kept on falling

Strange to think I once wished to be snowed in. It used to seem fun. And so it can be in small doses, just enough to keep you in for a day or two. By the fire. With a good book.  But last year the Scottish winter seemed to gain an almost sinister determination to be taken seriously.  Once the snow started falling it just kept on falling. Beautiful to look at but deadly to drive or walk on.

 

Even the tractor gave up when the snow got this deep