Motoring to the game yesterday I couldn’t help notice that the Ochil Hills had snow on them.

First snow of the season. And it’s still October. The clocks haven’t even changed.

Even if it had disappeared by full time (much like any hope of staving off relegation) another long hard winter may be on the way.

The past couple of weeks car windows in my street have had condensation on them when I left the house. This doesn’t usually happen in August.

This morning (1st Sep) bang on cue the first mist of the autumn was hanging around. I’d have called it a haar but it persisted all the way to Dunfermline; haar usually only lies close to the coast and Dunfermline tends to avoid it.

Whether this presages another bad winter like last year I don’t know. I do know it’s not usually so cold so early.

The tree at work I have mentioned before is showing its autumn colours again. Mind you, it wasn’t looking too green even in June.

Winter woollies, then.

Well those who were hankering after it have certainly had their winter shutdown.

For clubs like Dumbarton it’s been like a close season this past month – only without the friendly matches.

Fingers crossed for tomorrow.

I came downstairs yesterday morning to a sparser covering of snow in the garden and streets almost clear of snow and ice.

Despite some patches of overlying water that had not been there on Saturday the pond in the park was still almost compleletely frozen, though, and skaters and hockeyists were still plying their skills.

This may not be true for much longer.

Well, a snow that lies more than a day or so is a rarity in these parts. It’s getting on for three weeks now and a further covering arrived this morning.

I finally got to the park today, to see the goings on.

A nice tribute to the human spirit that so much activity was taking place and fun being had in the face of what others were moaning about.

It wasn’t worth the council’s time erecting this sign.

Not quite a bonspiel but the local curlers were enjoying themselves.

An ice hockey game with a goal cobbled together from bits of wood.

The last saloon in town. The inlet to the pond has kept enough water moving to stop it freezing here. The gulls were making a nuisance of themselves.

There were lots of skaters about too. All the revellers had had to brush the snow off the ice to get started.

This is the fountain further into the park. There was still water flowing from it despite the cold.

I woke up this morning to that rarity in Kirkcaldy, a heavy snowfall. This is only the third or so time in over twenty years here that there’s been enough to build a snowman. There must have been at least three inches. Very festive. Thank goodness I’m on holiday.
When I ventured out it wasn’t as cold as yesterday, though.
I’m hoping the game is off on Saturday as I’d like to watch David Tennant’s Hamlet and it starts at 5.05.

This morning it was pretty dark when I left the house. Well, it is only one week away from the shortest day and the overcast didn’t help. But it seemed much worse than last week and Friday was only three days ago. It was still more or less dark when I got to work and also when I left to drive home. So I’ve barely seen any daylight.

Dawn still gets progressively later over the next week and even though sunset has passed its earliest by now it gets later by a smaller margin so the days still shorten.

Had the clocks not changed in October I would already have had a month or so of travelling to work in the dark (with daylight only appearing around ten o’clock) and there would have been little or no lightness in the evening to compensate. Plus after the New Year another month of the same grind to get through.

(I’ve heard that people in Norway who only get one hour of daylight at this time of year don’t bother with it and just keep their curtains closed.)

As it is the mornings will be brightening from the beginning of January. And there’s a holiday season coming up. Reasons to be cheerful. Maybe.

I might give the game tomorrow night a miss, though.

That tree I mentioned last year is on the turn again.

I fogot to check it on Monday but made sure to yesterday and there were definite signs of yellow leaves.

Maybe it’s a species that just does this at the back end of August/beginning of September but it seems extremely early to me.

It might be another not very good winter.

This morning I woke to about a centimetre of snow lying outside. Typical, I thought. My week for the car.

As soon as I had scraped the windows and lights, got 50 metres from the house and onto a bus route it was all salted away, though. No hold ups, no problem. Work as usual.

It was just about all gone when I got home again. Ah well.

Apart from the ridiculous nature of the phrase itself, what snow event?
All I’ve seen is a few flurries. No roads blocked, no days off work, no sledging in the park. An “event” affecting only parts of the UK at the time is nationwide news? And the worst in Britain for 18 years? Falls like that are commonplace in the Highlands most years.

I know some places have had it badly, but on the other hand there was some twerp saying the road he was speaking from was impassable yet there was barely a covering on the pavement behind him.

I’ve seen bad snow and driven in it. An inch isn’t bad. If you can see the pavement it certainly isn’t bad. But people are not used to it, I suppose.

OK, the worst snow I’ve ever experienced was when I lived in Essex and Hertford. Howling in from the East like this week. But there wasn’t the same fuss nor absenteeism. People tried their damnedest to get to work. They even used skis to get in to the good lady’s workplace!
But that was in the long ago days before Thatcher taught us all to be selfish. This week it was just an excuse for a skivy day or two off.

And as to the supposed cost of the disruption; where did the figure of £1 billion come from? It looks pulled out of the air to me. If folk didn’t buy something today because they couldn’t get to the shops or the shop was closed they’ll buy it tomorrow or next week if they need it, so businesses will make any loss up. It’s a nonsense, yet seems to have been trotted out uncritically by journalists (who, by the way, just love things like this. Any whiff of disaster or anything out of the ordinary and they’re off, almost salivating at the prospect of hogging the screen for a few minutes.)

Rant over. Enjoy the rest of your winter.