Winter comes early to Durham

Winter has come early to Durham (late November 2010). We've had epic, blanketing amounts of snow over the weekend, and again today. Proper seasons, not like them in that there London...

To their huge credit (though this is not quite how Liam saw it), his school - Blue Coat Junior, in Newton Hall - defied the snow to insist on opening, when pretty much every other school in the city closed. Most of the staff live locally, it seems. We got there OK in the morning, by bus, to learn that only two other kids had made it from Liam's class.

But when it came to collect him, Valeria and I ended up walking the mile or so in a full-on blizzard... It reminded us of the Shackleton DVD we watched recently. Paraphrasing Sir Ernest somewhat: "TO BLUE COAT JUNIOR SCHOOL! FIVE HUNDRED METRES A DAY!" But Valeria did look very cute in the snowstorm...

Daddy also made two snowmen to greet those trekking up our road... And Liam made a couple of creditable snow angels in our front garden... Round the back of Country Hall, about a 10 minute trudge from our house, there are a couple of agreeably steep and long hillsides for sledging.


Liam took a while to feel comfortable with having a go, but loved it after one run. Hopefully you can open the film of one go...