Glossop held the UK record for depth of snow last night - 25cm, or 10 inches. Shin-deep, certainly. My street, which is a very steep slope, is an excellent piste. Main roads across the Peak District intermittently blocked by drifts and incompetent drivers.

At last Monday's session the talk was about notorious hard winters in the UK. 1981-82, my father and I walked across the frozen River Ouse just north of York. 1962-63, I remember someone driving a Mini across the Thames near Reading. A very early memory, 1959-60; I was barely two years old. My Grandfather started clearing the snow from a garden in Port Talbot. I helped him with, I think, an ice-cream scoop. Progress was slow, because my grandfather stopped to light a pipe and photograph my efforts.

A few veterans amongst us remembered 1847-48, when temperatures slowly fell in late February and light snow began; the temperature kept going down, and while there wasn't ever much snow, it didn't go away; there was still snow on the ground in July.