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!

That’s the only way I can describe our weekend just gone. The wind we felt this afternoon as we were walking up the high road was unbelievably cutting! By the time we got home my ears were totally fruz!

So weather like that is only good for one thing – staying in and staying warm! Still, we managed to get a fair bit achieved – we even went to the gym twice! A lot of the rest was planning travel – if anyone has a recommendation of where to stay (or where not to stay) in Rome, I’m all ears.

The highlight of the weekend was dinner on Saturday night, when we met up with Pat, Racey and Wes at the Fishworks Cafe on Turnham Green Terrace. I’ve always been intrigued by this place, as it’s a fishmonger out the front, and a restaurant out the back – so one would assume that their seafood is uber-fresh. Well, I’m pleased to say that it didn’t disappoint – their mussels were especially good, as was the Dover Sole (which Pat ordered). I’d eat there again for sure!

The crazy Apple Weather widget (which, by the way, is way better than the equivalent gadget for Windows Vista – despite this complaint!) seems to default to places in the USA, no matter what you type in. Well, turns out that there’s about three cities called “London” in the states! No wonder it kept feeling way colder than what the computer was telling me – it was always about 10 degrees out!

Looks like the good folks in London, Ohio, are in for some storms on Tuesday!

In case you think New York is all glam all the time, I’m here to prove you wrong. Like I said yesterday, when a big dump of snow falls, it’s nice for a few minutes, but after it stops and cars start driving through it…

This is on the corner just near work. As you can see, that snow ain’t so white anymore, and you can bet your bottom dollar that it’s slippery too. And given how cold it is, you don’t want to be slipping over in that. Crossing the road and walking through that mess on both sides is not the most enjoyable thing about living here!

Oh, and you’ll also notice the big pile of rubbish in the front-right of the frame. New York’s rubbish collection cycle involves tossing all your garbage out in bags on the side of the road, and then blokes come along and chuck it into the back of massive vans while you’re at work. It ain’t pretty, but it works. Still, I don’t understand why the recyclables get put into plastic bags, to me that seems to defeat the purpose!

And suffice to say, when it snows you really don’t want to be the owner of a car! Karl and I were remarking today that all the snow and salt (which is used to melt the snow) can’t be good for your paintwork. Then again, I guess people in the city just don’t care!