The snow in my corner of Essex

We had the most delightful snow, Sat night into Sunday. It started around 22.00 and continued on heavily into the morning. It was the first snow of winter in my region.

Slocombe the cat was curious but decided not to venture out onto the roof terrace:

I decided to venture to the park, with my snowshoes as we had 4-5 inches. The last time I had the opportunity to use my snowshoes was in Germany, in Feb 2008. We've had a few UK snowstorms since I've arrived, but never on a weekend. Fortunately the weather predictions were good so I had done all of my food shopping on Saturday so to be able to fully enjoy Sunday.

It was good packing snow on the roof terrace, so I made a snowman. We're supposed to have above freezing drizzle tomorrow, so we'll see how long he lasts.

I was a little surprised on Saturday night when I called home to the US; my relatives had not heard about our 'deep freeze' in Europe, or the snow that has been raging across the continent. Usually they keep an eye out for news over here, so it seems that it did not get much coverage over there on this go round.

Snow in the UK this past week

we really got hammered in my corner of Essex. schools were closed and many people were off from work.

Yet another reason I enjoy having the roof terrace

Without overhead cover, there's enough snow for a front balcony snowman:

And a back balcony snowman too:

The UK snowman

Thursday night into Friday we got pummeled in the UK with snow:

Saturday the Phillyland area got pounded with 20 inches.
Heathrow is still recovering today from snow delays earlier this week and facing new ones.

With any luck, all of these issues will be cleared by 6 AM tomorrow UK time. :-)
I've left you a few pre-postings as I'm in the air.

A veritable heat wave

UK temps have been clearing 30 with a few days of this weather planned.
Even my jalapeno pepper plant is wilting today, but I'm not complaining one iota, it's true summer weather. :-)

Thankfully, the new cat has enough sense to hide underneath the bed, in the coolest room in the house. I was a little afraid that I'd come home to roasted cat today if she chose to be in the sun. I'm under the roof, so the heat rises up.

The road to Dean's house

Dean lives on a lovely residential street where big puffy flowers filled the trees last week shouting 'spring is here!' Flower petals were gently fluttering to the ground in the relaxing summer-like weather and they softly blew away, sharing their pink goodness with the world.

Today, someone turned off the early summer weather. Went I went into the office the heat was on. Then it started to dump rain, along with wind, so most of the remaining petals gave up the ghost:

Because it was wet, however, there was no where for them to escape, but they are now sticking to the ground. So the street looks like a Pepto-Bismol truck tried to run over the Energizer Bunny--and I'm not sure who won...