It all started about three weeks ago in the middle of January. Mel gasped, her jaw dropped and her eyes popped wide open. She was pointing out the living room window to something outside. “Look!”, she exclaimed. I looked and saw nothing. “The plant!” She was referring to the small, potted lilac plant that Jenna gave us last summer. It had bloomed beautifully at the time, but once summer ended we left it out on the balcony for dead (sorry Jenna, we are about the least plant-friendly people we know!). It had been sitting out there all dry and shrivelled up for months. But now it was blooming! In the middle of January!

Then last Saturday, as it was nothing but sunshine and Mel was doing a “craft day” at the hall with some of the girls, I headed down to Greenwich for a walk. Sure enough, the flowers in the Greenwich Park flower garden were pushing up and approaching half-bloom. Cherry blossoms were opening. I even saw a baby fox playing with some pigeons. It was seriously the nicest February day I’ve ever experienced.

Well, that was last Saturday, today is Thursday, and in between we’ve had all four seasons. In fact, today was the biggest recorded snowfall in England in the past decade. A whole whopping 5cm! If you thought hurricane force winds could cause a fair spot of bother, well just imagine what 5cm of snow can do. According to this evening’s paper, up to 1 million people in London were late for work this morning or failed to turn up altogether, costing businesses a total of £100 million. Tube, rail, road and airline networks were disrupted across the capital, with up to 40,000 passengers at Luton and Stansted airports facing delays and cancellations. For a city that stood up to the Blitz of WWII, you wouldn’t think that a little falling snow would make its citizens hide under the covers desperately clutching a mug of hot chocolate!

Not all commuters were disgruntled by the transit delays and cancellations, though. Reportedly, thousands of delighted schoolchildren across the country were celebrating the closure of hundreds of schools. Ah, memories of a “snow day”…

Hopefully no schoolchildren are reading this, cos I’m hoping it’s back to spring by Saturday :)