We have winter weather here - unheard of for late February, according to the more hysterical media. (Daily Express, I'm glaring at you.) In Scotland it's actually serious, but here it's a light dusting and temperatures only a few degrees below freezing.

Folks from places with deep snow for months may mock, but it's actually quite rare here, thanks to the Gulf Stream, and snow by the foot is generally a once-a-decade phenomenon. That means it is really not cost-effective to invest in snow tyres/chains for cars or commercial vehicles, and local highways authorities have gritters but few snowploughs. At times like this, that's a problem.



On Monday we went up to Llandudno to inter my mother's ashes with my father's. The minister who conducted the funeral was there, so we had some prayers and a quasi-religious interment, but it was short, though rather moving. I've struggled to express my grief over the last few weeks - a sort of flatness, a lack of affect, rather than tears, though I did cry a little as my niece placed the little casket in the hole. Weirdly, the funeral director had brought a similar casket containing soil with him, for us to throw into the hole. My niece, with a doctorate in archaeologist, actually asked him about it; "I'm a professional archaeologist, and I know what human remains look like, and they aren't it..." At such times a smile is welcome.

We went back to Mum's bungalow afterwards, for a cuppa and a quick recon, which mostly brought home the huge scale of the task. She had done no sorting of stuff before she entered the home, so there is paperwork everywhere, and so. much. stuff. It's going to take some pretty intensive sorting before we can put the place on the market, which can't happen before we get the grant of probate. I have begun on the paperwork for that. The wheels of HMRC (tax/customs arm of government) grind slow but very fine, and there is much to do. We will be getting to know the A5 far too well over the next few months, I fear.

R and E (niece) each took a memento from the house. We are all very determined nobody will squabble over stuff, so it's nice to know that some of the things Mum liked but I don't will find a safe haven with E.

The "beast from the east", or "hysteria from Siberia" has arrived, and we have a little more snow today. Pretty, but no problem.



Rhiannon likes the snow - there's more of it in Hertfordshire than here.




It may get worse later in the week, as the Jet Stream has definitely skewed and we are getting weather from all sort of unexpected directions. Meanwhile, in the area around the North Pole, the temperature is above freezing for the first recorded time during the polar night. This is what climate change looks like, folks.

I gather Trump has mislaid another close associate. Ah well.