Definitely the biggest problem of all the snow is all the ice that forms afterwards. And, since temperatures have regularly been below zero, the ice has taken an age to melt. Thankfully, neither of us have fallen victim to it yet, but I’ve certainly seen people who have – and it doesn’t look like too much fun!

This is what the platform at Gunnersbury station looked like on Friday morning.

And here’s where our car is parked on the street. The ice on the footpath was about a centimetre thick, which made it pretty tricky getting in and out of the car doors! On the upside, it was a bit warmer on Sunday (somewhere around two degrees) so the ice finally started to subside a bit. Plus, all the build-up on the car meant I got to put my ice-scraping skills to good use!

We took Gazpacho for a spin on Saturday because we were out of groceries (and we weren’t the only ones with that idea; Tescos was rammed). That’s the first time I’ve ever driven on ice, and I’ve gotta say, I don’t like it. It’s somewhat discomforting when you spin the steering wheel but the car doesn’t actually start turning. Thank goodness the brakes still worked!

After a very early start yesterday morning (4 AM Düsseldorf time, or 3 AM London time) we managed to make it to the airport for our 7:10 AM flight. Thankfully, the flight made it back to London with only about a 1/2hr delay.

The snow continues to wreak havoc here though – lots of flights cancelled, public transport is a nightmare, and even the high-speed rail service is suffering. I heard this morning that the Eurostar has a 40,000 passenger backlog to process!

Fingers crossed things clear up before our flight to Aberdeen on Thursday afternoon!

And I mean, hot. Like summer in Australia type of hot. Today it hit 32 degrees. 32! Now, I know what all you Australian’s are thinking – 32 degrees isn’t really that hot; and I agree, it’s actually really nice sitting outside in the shade! But London just isn’t equipped to cope with temperatures like these.

I’m lucky enough to have air-conditioning in my building at work – lots of people don’t though, and boy am I feeling sorry for them this week! Last week our office a/c broke down, and it rapidly hit 29 degrees inside. And, since all the windows are locked as a matter of policy, there’s also no air movement, which makes it hard to concentrate, but easy to fall asleep!

Thankfully, the a/c is back on this week, and at the moment it’s cranked up to it’s maximum. This has somehow caused it to leak water, and since we’re on the top floor, it’s been dripping through the roof. One of the business analysts that I work with had a leak above her desk that was so bad, that it destroyed one of her monitors. And those bad boys aren’t cheap (think £1,000+)!

On the upside, it’s been absolutely gorgeous outside these last few days, with nothing but beautiful blue, sunny skies to be seen. Perfect sunglasses weather! And, since we’re in daylight savings, it stays light until around 9:45 PM! All this beautiful summer is totally making me forget about the miserable winter!

Not content with a whole week of skiing, we somehow managed to bring the snow with us back to London. It started falling – lightly at first, and then getting heavier – around 6 PM last night. By around 8 PM, there was quite a decent coating on the ground, which looked rather atmospheric under the eerie yellow street lights.

Seemingly it must have snowed almost continuously overnight, as by the morning, everything was well covered. We even had to cancel our barbeque breakfast on the patio!

London is not in the least bit equipped to deal with such a downfall; all the airports were closed, and all public transport (save for the underground lines that are entirely underground) was completely suspended.

Our work is well equipped to deal with such a scenario – I simply stayed at home and dialed in, instead. Now that’s all well and good, except that the other members of our household got to have a play for snow-day!

To top it all off, apparently there’s even more snow to come tomorrow and Wednesday!

More photos online in the Snowy London album.

For some reason I woke up early on Sunday, so I came upstairs and was playing a bit of Dead Space. Shelley came down not long after me, so we sat on the couch and hosed some aliens together.

Julian was the next one to wake up, and he walked over to the little window out on to the side yard, and said, “did you guys notice that it snowed overnight?”.

Shelley, clearly afraid that saying the word “snow” would immediately start it melting, LEAPT up from the couch and kind-of toe danced her way over to the window, absolutely shaking with excitement. “Where? Where? Where?!” she demanded.

Now, the part that I don’t really understand is, why she chose to go to the tiny window with a fairly non-view, instead of just opening the curtains out on to the backyard.

As you can see, our dusting of snow is nothing compared to what Racey and Wes got in Scotland, but it was still a novelty to wake up to, even if it did need to be pointed out to me.

I have three weather widgets on my dashboard – one for London (obviously), one for Brisbane, and one for Fort Lauderdale. The London one is good for telling me how many layers to apply before leaving the house; the Brisbane and Fort Lauderdale ones are for telling me how many layers everyone else won’t be applying before leaving the house.

I also like comparing them to work out which would be the best place for enjoying the weather. I’m not sure that London has ever won in this category.

Fort Lauderdale is today’s easy winner!

Do you know where your children are?

Well, if I was a kid, I’d want to be playing outdoors, given that it’s still light outside! (This is the view out of our bedroom window.) And, the sun was well risen at 6:15AM when I woke up this morning – which means we’re getting over 15 hours of daylight at the moment! I love daylight savings!

(Note: rising at 6:15AM is only to get to the gym when it opens at 6:30AM. As if I’d be doing that voluntarily! Who do you think I am – Karl?)

So finally on Sunday, we got a day’s worth of weather that was worth writing home about. Consequently, we all basked in our new found glory (you Australian folks might know it as “sunshine”) and trolleyed over to Kew Gardens. And though Julian was busy with band practice, Shelley joined in for the ride; but as it turns out, it was simply an excuse for her to avoid writing report cards!

Even though Kew Gardens aren’t all that big, we thought it important that we first sit down and get our bearings. So the girls did exactly that, whilst I took a photo of the girls doing exactly that.

After we worked out an attack plan, we wondered through the gardens looking at glass house after glass house. They must really have an aversion to stone throwing. The glass houses were all nice and green and what not, but I found them all pretty much the same. Oh, and some of them were ridiculously hot inside.

One of the “attractions” at Kew is a headphone tree. No, the headphones don’t grow on the tree, but they are connected to it. If someone is nice enough to hold down the magic button on the tree trunk, you can actually hear the water rushing up and around all the tree… vein… thingys. (It was Sunday, and I was in no mood for learning!)

The other attraction – which I think most of West London had turned out to try – was the Xstrata treetop walkway. It’s literally what it sounds like – a walkway through the treetops, that “blends seemlessly” into the environment around it.

I don’t know who they’re trying to kid; to me, it looks like a stairs and a walkway. But regardless, it’s still pretty cool – and the view from 18 metres up is… well, it’s… rather green.

There were people everywhere – and everyone from the very very young, to the very very old. One little kid had counted the stairs on the way up, then asked the attendant at the top if his tally was right. I didn’t hear the answer, but Kristy did – and it turned out that he was wrong. Loser! Not me – I totally nailed the count on the way down! (And of course I’ve forgotten now how many it was…)

And so – lovely Kew Gardens makes for a lovely day out in the lovely sunshine in lovely London. Just lovely!

I’m not a morning person. In fact, I’m a bit worried that if I ever live with friends I’ll have to set a house rule that they don’t try talking to me until after I’ve eaten something. Even dragging my eyelids up and my body out of bed can be quite a miserable, seemingly insurmountable, task. Scene set.

So Tuesday got off to a rough start for me this week. Gerrod woke me with a prod in the arm and this little nugget of trivia, referring to the radio: Did you hear that? June’s weather will be ok but July and August are going to be a complete wash out! Oh and there are severe delays on the district line!

I was Frowny McFrownFrown all day. Surely this lukewarm weather where people are still wearing trench coats can’t be as good as summer 2008 gets? That’s not fair!

I figure, part of the reason that winter is ok is that you know summer is coming. You’ve got the yin and the yang and one makes you enjoy and appreciate the other. And in between you have spring, on the first warm day of which you go and buy the four S’s of summer: shorts, skirts, singlets and sandals.

But now, if Gerrod’s trusty morning motivationals are to be believed, there will be no need for any of them. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, it was going to be a rubbish commute to work. Sigh.

48 hours ago, we were sitting at our hotel room in a coffee plantation in Costa Rica, where it was 32°C in the shade, and as humid as I can ever remember. This morning when we arrived in London, it was 0°C in the “sun”, and the forecast was for rain, hail, sleet, and snow – all in the same day!

Still, it’s the little things that count; when the immigration lady was finished asking us her barrage of questions, she handed our passports to us, and with a smile said, “welcome back”. It wasn’t quite the “welcome home” that we hope for when we land in Australia, but it still felt nice.

Anyway, I’m too tired and jet-lagged to do a proper update, plus the laptop battery is almost flat and I haven’t unpacked the charger; but suffice to say we’re home safely, our holiday was fantastic, and we have a heap of photos and videos to prove it!