Brrrrrr!

We woke up this morning and opened the curtains to blizzard conditions. Thank goodness I managed to plant the early potatoes this week! This time next week, I shall be setting off again upon the Via de la Plata from Salamanca, in what I hope will be milder weather. Must get back to the packing: when you have to carry what you need for three or more weeks on your back, everything you are taking with you involves a severe examination of conscience.

Thamesside

Undaunted - just - by the continuing bitter winds, I pedalled off this morning, to catch an early train to Cookham: it was worth it to escape the crowds coming in the other direction. There was a scattering of snow on the platform at Stroud as we passed through, but none by the time I reached Berkshire. Ten of us walked off together from Cookham station, passing Stanley Spencer's house before making for the wood that was partly the inspiration for Kenneth Grahame's Wind in the Willows. Despite an attractive few hundred yards of sunken lane and a few big, old beeches, it lacks much mystery today because of ill-management and the dual carriageway below.

Cutting short of Henley, we looped back through an attractive stretch of water meadows, still showing signs of flooding. Hardly any houses of note, I was surprised to observe, and all much more suburban than anything in the Cotswolds. It was a joy to catch a golden sunset from the direction of the Malverns as the train headed back to Cheltenham from Gloucester on the last leg of my homeward journey.

Potato time again

The snow and ice last weekend affected the numbers coming to Dundry Nurseries' annual potato fest, and there were still plenty of varieties to choose from when I called yesterday afternoon on the way home from Gloucester.

So, for us this year it's going to be Red Duke of York, an old favourite, for the earlies, and Pink Fir Apple for maincrop. I've bought 3kgs. of each: we'll see how we get on.

Winter at last

The snow lies thick now, and it's due to last for weeks! So, thank goodness nobody is planning going far this weekend - at least now that Agnes brought forward her trip to Oxford and we have cancelled our book group meeting in Worcester tomorrow. I have had sinusitis all week, so today was the first day I felt like putting my nose outside for any length of time - to walk along and collect a prescription. I must have been feeling below par to skip going to the National Theatre's Cineworld relay of "The Magistrate" last night: I was looking forward to it. Instead, we have Ida to entertain us.

Feuilles lourdes

With friends staying the weekend, we were dropped at the end of the Stockwell lane this morning, and set off to walk home, via Coberley. The inch or two of snow that fell over the past few days had frozen, making walking easy on this windless morning, provided you avoided the icy patches: no mud, at least! But the real pleasure of being out today was to see trees glistening as if coated in caramel. Nature, in suspended animation! Hard to describe such rare beauty, and to capture it in a photograph: I had forgotten how necessary it is, in a snowy world, to stop down, to compensate for the glare. So, thank you, Lightroom!

(Today we are celebrating the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes.)

Hallelujah

This is one of the gates of St Gregory's Church, here in Cheltenham town centre: I took it on Sunday night. We were due to go again last night for the carol concert, but it was called off. As compensation, I discovered this joyous video: it has been viewed nearly 25 million times already, but some of you (like me) may have missed it.

"The Nativity"

We watched the first episode of BBC1's "The Nativity" this evening. Very good it was too. A perceptive review has already appeared here.

What I particularly liked about it was the depiction of the holy family as made up of very ordinary people, rather like those out walking their dog on our local playing field yesterday. (Not sure the holy family would have kept a dog, mind you.) We shall try and catch the remaining three episodes - which is not so hard now that we are house-bound because of the weather: we've just been coping with a burst pipe.

paper white

Caroline was out early this morning, sweeping our drive after our first really serious fall of snow this Winter: we have got off lightly up till now. I was quite surprised that the newspapers had got through, as the roads are treacherous. Gritters don't seem to work on a Sunday, I concluded as I slithered by foot to mass this evening. I sneaked in a prayer for a better performance by our batsmen after the Perth debacle.

Grandparenting

Verdict on last night's predictions:

* the cricket - better than I expected (Day 1): a long way to go though!

* the weather - as bad: not much fun bicycling back from Cheltenham Station in the snow this evening.

I had taken the bike on the train to Bristol, for a visit to watch grandson Laurie in a starring role as a gingerbread man - in his playgroup's Christmas show. In fact, all 31 of the little darlings had starring roles, but naturally Laurie was the only one who really mattered. (Photography generally encouraged, but results not to be posted on the internet, I was advised.) I wondered if any of them would make it onto whatever turns out to be the 2025 equivalent of The X Factor.

It is always nostalgic, coming to Temple Meads Station, and reliving the misery of the beginning of each new school term in the early 50s.

Student unrest - in Cheltenham

"Hundreds of students are gathering in Cheltenham to stage a protest against a planned rise in tuition fees" - so promised the press release issued first thing this morning. The police turned out in force. Bus routes were diverted, and not just because of the snow.

The water froze before reaching the taps in my Oxford rooms in 1962. Surely students today are not put off from marching by a little cold? In a place where the annual GCHQ rallies used to witness thousands coming together, just a few tens ambled in after midday today - shepherded by as many (if not more) of the boys and girls in yellow jackets, their kettling skills unneeded. William IV looked down scornfully from his plinth.

Transfiguration

"A stained glass Bible", which I published last year, has just entered a new edition, with some extra pages. The latest image is this rather tender Victorian "Transfiguration" panel: friends have it in their house, rescued from a London church riddled with dry rot and demolished in the 'Seventies.

I'm rather pleased to have been able to include some glass which, whilst it fits my biblical theme, is not stuck away in a little-visited church, but instead much cherished by private owners: it hangs in their front porch, but was taken down specially for my (by appointment) visit.

Well worth my rather dicey bicycle ride through Cheltenham's unsalted streets, in order to take the photograph this morning!

Clinging on

A fine day in Capetown seems and is a far cry from frozen Leckhampton. It appearing improbable that England's last seven wickets would last out for a draw in the Third Test, I was particularly delighted that Ian Bell was the lynchpin of our successful rearguard action, a player I've followed since his teenage debut with "my" team, Warwickshire. (Odd how these loyalties never die: I was glad to find out recently that not only my mother's father, but also my father's grandfather were staunch Aston Villa supporters, a tradition I've clearly inherited.)

Between listening to the fluctuations in the cricket, we had a great walk in the snow, coming back through the big meadow with its ancient oaks. Developers, keep your hands off!

12th Night

"A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey..."

We provided a refuge for one, nearly two, stranded in Cheltenham last night, as three inches of snow fell even down here. And it's snowing again now. The heaviest we've had it since we came here in 1995.

As I sit here tapping away, and Caroline rings round the family, we can hardly say, with Eliot's Magi, "But there was no information".

Ripe for development?

The word is that this and the other open land between us and Leckhampton Church has all been optioned (if not bought) by builders or developers, who are just waiting for the dominoes to start falling via the planning process. I - and many others - support LEGLAG, in opposing any such development, for many reasons, including the increased likelihood of flooding. Well, as you can see it was pretty boggy today, as always in Winter. Albeit scenic of course in the snow.

Caroline has set out intrepidly for Hampshire, loaded with sandwiches, blankets, mats and a shovel - as well as Agnes and Ida. They are to stay with William and Laurie for a couple of nights, whilst Edmund and Claire go to Norfolk for a wedding: it seems likely to be a white one.

Planet Cheltenham

I've carped about Holst's statue previously. Here he was today, in the snow, conducting in the direction of the "Eagle Star" building.

Pevsner describes this 40-year-old monstrosity as a "lumpish... insensitive 13-storey... mistake."

Who am I to say that statue and building weren't both ill-judged?