The Big Freeze

It never snows in London, they say; except, of course, when it does. The snow never lasts long in London, they say; except, of course, when it does.

My photographic record shows that the first snows fell on the evening of 21 December 2009, half-an-hour or so before we were about to head out for a pre-Christmas drinks party at a neighbour's. Much of that snow had melted away by Christmas Day itself, although the weather remained bitterly cold; snow fell again on the night of 5-6 January 2010, and (thanks to road traffic and the press of feet on the pavements) has now turned mostly to ice.

Except in our garden, where we haven't ventured at all other than to top up the bird feedery every morning and replace the block of the ice in the birds' water dish with, er, actual water. I do this every morning about 7.15pm, when I get back with the newspaper; by the time I set off for work, two hours later, the water dish has developed a new skin of ice, which requires to be flushed off and replaced with new water. (If I don't do it, Judith does. Even if I do, she then has to go out into the garden later in the day and repeat the exercise.)

The surface of the pond froze over before the first snows fell in December. It has stayed frozen over ever since, and if anything the ice -- although I haven't actually measured it -- seems to have become thicker and thicker. Snow accumulates, animal tracks appear on the surface, if you didn't know it was a pond you wouldn't recognise it at all. Here are a couple of pictures to show you what a north London garden looks like in the snow you total Aussie wimps, you.