Boring pictures

On this Easter Day, the 1/2 hour of Breakfast/ BBC News 24 that I have just watched was totally devoid of any meaningful reference to Easter. There were plenty of pictures of snow sent in by viewers but, to be honest, they were all pretty boring. A photograph of Dr John Sentamu tobogganing down the slopes of Clifford's Tower - that would be more fun and perhaps of some relevance to the day.

On Friday afternoon I went to the cinema. When I got back to the station I commented to someone what a beautiful day it was.

My train journey home was less than 15 minutes - in that time the sun disappeared, the sky darkened and white stuff started to fall out of the sky.

Not white fluffy snow, but hail stones. Tumbling as though someone above was tipping them out of bags as fast as they could go. The hail storm lasted a couple of minutes, but it was enough to whiten things over. These anonymised pictures show the immediate after effects of the hail on this green and pleasant land immediately around my home.

I suspect that the hail got into the railway cogs somewhere, because shortly afterwards Chiltern Railways suspended all services between London and High Wycombe due to a signal failure between West Ruislip & Gerrards Cross. It took around three hours to resolve, so it looks as though I just got home in time.

A little bit of suffering on Good Friday is good for the soul!

Yesterday (Easter Saturday) I was at the Millenium Stadium in Cardiff for the semi-finals of a rugby competition, sponsored by an energy company that has resorted to initials because it otherwise sounds too French.

I am not going to mention the rugby - I am a Saracens season ticket holder. It had been a gloriously sunny afternoon for the first match- then briefly the weather closed in and a brief light sprinkling of snow obviously made everything so slippery that it was enough to cause Saracens significant disadvantage. Hmm. This picture is more exiting than the Saracens -v- Ospreys match. The better team won.

For information, we drove along the M4 to Newport (Gwent) and then caught the (arriva) train to Cardiff. This seemed like a sensible option, though we never did find the long-stay car park at the train station. I did wonder whether they take all the signs down for event days?

Back to today: I live in the Chiltern Hills in Buckinghamshire, to the North West of London. We are supposed to catch every snow flake as it travels towards London to create its own national emergency.

I look out of the window and I see green. I see birds flying around. I see ramblers. In short, I see a typical day. Two main differences- It is a special day when god fearing folk are supposed to be at church and one when you will have great difficulty in shopping as, by law, all but the smallest of shops are closed.

We did have a bit of the white fluffy stuff earlier, but it has all gone. For the latest weather, visit the Met Office website.

Happy Easter!