Toby Atkin-Wright

The news is full of stories of schools closing due to the weather conditions. It must be hard if parents are depending on schools to look after their children during the working day; I would have thought that schools should consider it their duty to be open and able to look after any children who can get to school through the snow.

Beth’s school reiterated its adverse weather policy in today’s newsletter: “As we are always able to ensure a skeleton staff will be present, the school will not close. However, we do appreciate that it may not be possible for all pupils or staff to travel to school in certain conditions. We therefore cannot guarantee that there will be a full timetable under these circumstances, but children can be looked after during normal school hours.”

Which seems sensible.

High winds and no new snow overnight; much of the snow in our garden is disappearing, and the poor snowman’s head has fallen off.

High winds and no new snow overnight; much of the snow in our garden is disappearing, and the poor snowman’s head has fallen off.

Today was my first day back into work this year. Andrew drove me into Dundee as usual; the roads were okay this morning but muckier and slippier on the way home this evening. I’m glad that it looks like I’ll be working at home for the next few days. I’m very glad the snow didn’t disrupt out Christmas travel (when we got the train down to Kent before Christmas there was chaos on the roads and airports were closed — rail was definitely the way to travel), and we met my parents in Carlisle yesterday to collect Beth without bother. She is back to school tomorrow.

Beth has been enjoying playing with all her Christmas presents. Her Stylophone makes an agreeably annoying noise. Kate’s father posted a parcel to us full of the Christmas presents we couldn’t fit in our luggage for the journey home; it arrived today but we haven’t opened it yet.

I watched Newsnight this evening; it is at its best when Paxman is presenting. And I chose to go with Newsnight Scotland at 11pm, rather than switching to BBC2 England. Oh, what choices we have. Now BBC2 is showing darts, and I have become aware in the last few minutes that I really don’t know how the game works. Must be time for bed.

Beth is glad to see the snow. There wasn’t any in Kent, and not much in Nottingham. Driving might be a pain, but at least the days are getting longer.

Today was my first day back into work this year. Andrew drove me into Dundee as usual; the roads were okay this morning but muckier and slippier on the way home this evening. I’m glad that it looks like I’ll be working at home for the next few days. I’m very glad the snow didn’t disrupt out Christmas travel (when we got the train down to Kent before Christmas there was chaos on the roads and airports were closed — rail was definitely the way to travel), and we met my parents in Carlisle yesterday to collect Beth without bother. She is back to school tomorrow.

Beth has been enjoying playing with all her Christmas presents. Her Stylophone makes an agreeably annoying noise. Kate’s father posted a parcel to us full of the Christmas presents we couldn’t fit in our luggage for the journey home; it arrived today but we haven’t opened it yet.

I watched Newsnight this evening; it is at its best when Paxman is presenting. And I chose to go with Newsnight Scotland at 11pm, rather than switching to BBC2 England. Oh, what choices we have. Now BBC2 is showing darts, and I have become aware in the last few minutes that I really don’t know how the game works. Must be time for bed.

Beth is glad to see the snow. There wasn’t any in Kent, and not much in Nottingham. Driving might be a pain, but at least the days are getting longer.