Anyone that knows me knows that I love snow, always have since I was a kid. It is a love that I have passed on to my own kids.
So you can imagine my joy when we had our first snow fall of winter on Friday night - still November. But since then it has hardly stopped snowing and we now have something like 50cm of snow in our garden. I have never seen anything like it in the UK except up the mountains.
Normal life has ground to a halt. The schools have been closed for 3 days. There is no post or other deliveries, the local shops run out of basic items like milk. It is all a bit mad.
The first few snow days were fun, but now the reality of starting to miss out on planned activities is hitting home. Liam is supposed to be singing in his school choir on Sunday at the city's Usher Hall, one of the top concert venues. They were supposed to go there to practice today but the school is still closed. His German Market that they have worked hard towards for weeks will also almost certainly be cancelled.
We have a lot planned for the weekend and just hope the snow lets up so we can get out.
If you doubt the amount of snow we have - check out the pictures.
Today Edinburgh airport is shut all day and there are some passengers that have been there since Sunday (it's now Weds). The Forth Road Bridge has also been shut all day so far due to a whiteout. Trees are starting to fall over from the weight of snow. I mean this is Edinburgh not the Cairngorm Mountains.
On the positive side, I've had some great walks with the dog through the trees alongside the river. It is stunningly beautiful there. Also given a good excuse to put the Christmas decorations up. But then when we went to get our artificial tree out of the loft, we found it had disappeared and been replaced by some strange "space saving" half tree that looks awful. So we ordered a new one online but of course nothing is getting delivered so who knows when we will get it.
I just hope I can fly out to Beirut next week.
However, all this discomfort and minor inconvenience is nothing compared to many very needy people who are really suffering, like the homeless, elderly and frail. It has been good to see a real sense of community spirit coming out around us as people look out for their neighbours. Lets hope it continues.
