The last time I saw snow in March was so long ago I didn't live here, or in the Midlands, and there had been no significant snowfall here at any time for almost twenty years.

'Winter' is normally a few frosty mornings in January as we are close enough to the coast to see the sea from our back bedroom windows.

Well, it is actually Poole harbour, and beyond it the Purbeck hills, but it IS salt water.

One or two snow showers are spoken of as 'bad weather'.

It is so long ago that Dorset saw really deep snow that just a few weeks ago a book was published about the effects of the snowfall of February 78 in this county - perhaps that was hubris or something. (Hey - hubris isn't in my edition of the pocket Oxford dictionary. I wanted the definition just to check - and it isn't in there - unless I spelt it wrong.....)

Just at the moment it is still snowing heavily - though the temperature is high enough for it to be mostly melting but the gutters are blocked. if it continues like this all day we will be regarding the recent snowfall and disruption as just a shakedown for the real thing.

If it freezes tonight - and the forecast is minus 3 degrees Celsius, there will be something to do!!!

Anne the Pleater