No snow in Sunderland

Living up a hill on a street which is not officially a through road, it's easy to feel snowed in: but on Sunday we decided that we could not only get the car down the hill, we'd be able to get it back up again. So we went for a walk on the beach. It seems a waste, when we've had such thick and inviting snowfalls, not to go crunching through the blankets of untrodden snow - but I know my limitations, so we went to Roker. The row of stumps lined up along the edge of the pavement suggests that there had been a storm, but we had sunshine and a brisk wind, and even walked out to the end of the pier (though I wasn't tempted to linger there). A short walk there and back, with fish and chips for lunch at the midpoint, but a welcome outing.

Driving home, we crossed a distinct boundary, just where the sign marked the county border. In Sunderland we saw literally no snow: in County Durham the fields were still white, though green was showing through. The snow was thawing rapidly, and water streamed off the fields and across the road. A couple of times, at the bottom of a dip, we had to ford a substantial pool of water.

Back in the city, the river was high, still within its banks and with visible changes of level at the weirs, a swift moving torrent of iced coffee.