First of all thanks to my vigilant readers who alerted me to the fact that my website had disappeared. See what happens when you go away for the weekend? But here I am, back in business.

Against the predicted odds we  made it to England. The hardest part of the journey was getting from our front door to the end of the street to catch the airport bus. The steps to our door had disappeared under yet another fall of snow, so I had to kind of slide down the gradient and hope for some natural obstacle to stop me when I got to the bottom. I’m relieved to say Mr F had forgotten to put batteries in his camera.

And during this unprecedented blanketing of Dublin under snow, from the vantage point of my second-floor study, I’ve been observing an interesting piece of guy behaviour. Down on an empty street someone tries to move their car. The wheels spin. They climb out, look ruefully at the snowdrift, peck at it with a plastic icecream spoonlet or a crochet hook or some other inadequate implement. And then, and then, from nowhere a man appears. He comes running, offering to push. Then two more men appear, possibly more. Where do they come from? Do they have a special homing instinct that detects Guy Stuff going on in the vicinity? And why do they enjoy pushing snow-bound cars so much anyway? It’s a mystery.

Wiltshire was lovely. Thatched cottages, rosy cheeked children out on horseback, obedient dogs, retired Colonels stepping out briskly to fetch the Sunday Telegraph. It was like waking up inside a Jackie Lawson Christmas card. Four whole days in England and I don’t have a single thing to complain about. How about that?