Good point. It’s probably too late, but I need to open the hatch into the loft to let in some warm air as we’ve had burst pipes up there in previous extended cold snaps, despite pipe wrappers round them there’s always a crevice.
Our next door neighbours, who have an identical bungalow, had a pipe burst while they were away in Austria over Christmas a couple of years ago. It flooded the whole house and they had to move out for a year while the place was almost completely rebuilt…
We had the same when we lived in County Durham and were visiting family in Lancashire one New Year. Pipe in the attic burst and was going for 24 hours until a neighbour heard it and rung us. Nobody had a spare key for us up there so we phoned the water company. They had thousands of people with burst pipes and it took another 8 hours for them to come and turn it off. By that time I’d driven up and turned off the internal stop cock. Luckily all the damage was at one end of the house but took out a bedroom/bathroom/kitchen and dining room. Took 3 months just to dry it out.
Made me smile, ‘going Bodmin’ has a particular meaning in Cornwall. 
Technically Madame does not live in Bodmin, she’s in St Breward which is a village up on the edge of the moor, so hopefully she gets a pass on that expression. 
Her house has spectacular views to the west, which with typical incompetence I failed to photograph. But I was not really thinking of photography much this past weekend. 
Amateurs all the ones above! Past coiple of nights -15 to -17. Tonight at least as bad and Wednesday in the day it says -11 -12, which likely means -14 or so.
This is the worst and earliest winter I can remember here in 32 years. However my 85 year old neighbour said growing up here, all winters were like this and with more snow.
Wow!
I’m not risking taking the kids to school (my Remy plus carpool boy), 7am may just be too icey. The school buses in the whole of 24 are cancelled. I’m torn about trying to get there or not. I don’t start again until 9am so not too early involving rushing. 
I would interpret that official notice as” don’t send your kids to school unless you need them babysat because you have to go to work yourself” . It seems fairly clear.
Do you get paid if you don’t turn up due to road conditions ?
For my normal hours yes but I’ve also got 2 hours of Greta (adult,) which is only paid if you are there and I need the money!! 
Venturing out into the nearly knee-high snow yesterday the going was almost noiseless, the snow being soft and fluffy. This morning the snow is still there, hasn’t diminished, but is very noisy and crunchy. It’s beginning to snarl!
According to the local weather forecast a combination of snow & rain is expected in the next few hours round my way. If so then slush is next, with slippery roads.
Edit: Remarkably accurate weather forecasting. It is now lightly raining and water is starting to drip from tree branches still holding blankets of snow. Will I be able to drive to the village corner shop today to collect my Amazon delivered new coffee maker?
BFM TV this morning had picked up on walking like a penguin when it’s icy or snowy, complete with a demo by a reporter in the studio. I hadn’t heard of it but it seems to have been around for a while.
Your link doesn’t work very well for me - Youtube version from NHS is better…
Thank you, Bonzocat.
Not there until next week - in a heavily curtailed visit owing to an attack of patella tendonitis before Xmas but Morbihan looks to have been pretty shut down, school transport cancelled so far this week (in fact the whole of Brittany plus Ille-et-Villane). We (uniquely in 56) had a red warning for snow and ice yesterday
I’m having kittens about the state of my water supply and heating.
Hope all turns out well, Sir William.
Storm Goretti looks to be a bit of a beast. Where Madame lives in Cornwall they are forecasting winds up to 90 mph, and the same probably applies to Northern France, as usually the southern edge of Atlantic storms is more vicious than the north…
There’s a red wind warning for Manche today. Thankfully I don’t think you’re going to get snow, that’s hitting Wales and the UK Midlands where the air is colder…
Quite. It will probably have moved out of the western channel by Friday evening (when I would originally have been travelling) but my dodgy knee might have saved me from a fairly unpleasant crossing.
Yes quite bouncy I imagine!
17°C outside currently, would be warmer too if tramontana stopped blowing.
Still quiet here in Manche at the moment. Just waiting… 
