Shock and awe.

I looked out at 6.05 am and was shocked to see it was white over. I'd heard some mention of snow when we were out last night but didn't last take it seriously.

Went ahead with our usual early Thursday walk and the snow got heavier though it was very pretty in the woods. I liked this shot of Coppice Pond with the two cygnets. It looks like mono but you can just see the brown colourful no on their wings. Parts of the pond were still frozen with snow settled on top.
My neighbour and I stopped here to feed them before the parent swan could get near to drive them off, which he did shortly after. We fed the ducks too as the feeding station was surrounded by ice.
Crossing the open field earlier it was like a blizzard.

When we got back to the main road it was chaotic. We had been able to hear a revving engine which apparently was a gritter sliding down the hill. When we got there he was reversing down Harden Spring whilst gritting. There were three cars which had crashed on the way down. One poor lady was telling her husband on the phone what had happened and she was in tears as he was telling her off for going out. She was trying to get to work! Great for International Women's Day. The other two crashes, interestingly, were both men!

We heard that the Twines down to Bingley was also littered with crashed cars and was blocked by a jack knifed bus.
Arriving back in the village centre there were cars abandoned everywhere. Five outside our church, right on the junction and several at the roundabout including one on the zebra crossing!

My son who got to work without problem all last week was stuck in traffic and despite leaving at 6.45am he didn't get to work till 10.00.

The snow stopped about 1030 a 11.00 and the sun came out.
Poor Chris spent yesterday morning making 20+ portions of chicken casserole for Lucheon Club today and it was cancelled for the second week running.

This afternoon I've been to Leeds under blue skies to watch the superb Northern Ballet perform 'Jane Eyre'. Still lots of abandoned cars scattered around as we drove back from the station in Bingley.

What a crazy day,