Where's winter?

The whole of England was threatened with dreadful weather this winter. So when snow fell a few weeks back, I was not too bothered by having no time to build a snowman, I thought there would be plenty of opportunity to come. Our drive has a field on one side and a bank with a hedge the other, so if the snow is blown across the field it hits the barrier and drops, several feet deep and we have to dig our way out, all 100 yards or so. In the meantime we walk the couple of kilometres into town for food. It’s the best thing about living at the edge of a countryish village, you’re not remote enough to be really cut off but, with fields in each direction round the garden, you feel as if you are.

Well, it’s not the end of January yet, so there’s still time I suppose. But weeks of ice and blizzards are increasingly unlikely. Lucky I didn’t get around to hauling the sledge out from the back of the shed. But the year doesn’t feel right if I haven’t made a snowman.

I’m reading ‘The Apologist’ by Jay Rayner. Only up to Chapter 6 but seems promising. Narrator is a restaurant critic, victim of harsh review kills himself by turning on the bread oven and shutting himself in – he goes to apologise to the widow and gets hooked on the headiness of absolution.