New Year's eve in the office. It's very quiet. All the talk now is of cuts and redundancy packages - people hoping for the right one, others hoping to avoid it. It looks like my area will have to deliver a 65% reduction over 3 years, with much of that front loaded into the coming year. So we're all nervous.

The practical upshot is that it has become very difficult to actually do anything. Any change or improvement to working practices is fought off strongly - because people are afraid that it might facilitate job losses. That's a bit of a nuisance when you're working on an improvement project like the one I'm involved in.

I am celebrating 'Christmas' on the 21st this year. Why? Partly because the weight of expectation drives the children wild and in the past has ensured that Christmas Eve - Christmas Day has become a dreadful 24 hours. Partly because I'm an atheist, and I would far rather celebrate the turn of the year and the nights starting to get shorter.

I explained this to a tolerant and liberal Christian colleague in work, and was flabbergasted by her response. She told me I was improperly imposing my views on my children, who should be allowed (sic) to celebrate Christ's birth on the day traditionally associated with it.

I could get no traction with her when I explained that I believed celebrating a Christian Christmas would be to impose a belief system on them. No, she equated 'allowing them to make up their own minds' with, basically, following Christian norms.

I asked what a Hindu or other faith family should do. Her response was that they should follow their own faith. So there you have it, she was prepared to extend a courtesy to other faiths that she would not extend to an atheist. I was totally stunned.

Liverpool very cold, but main roads are clear. I've just arrived on a bus which was so cold there was ice on the inside of the windows and icicles hanging from the ceiling. Freezing fog over the river and the pavements are lethal - I had to grab a lampost to prevent myself from hitting the floor at one point as my feet went from under me. I can now here the sound of fog horns from the ships on the river.

Quick winter walk at Dibbinsdale today. Very surprised to see a fox running along the path in front of us. At about 14:00 in the afternoon. Really made the day. And of course on the way back there was the buzzard sat on top of the street lights...but he's always there.

When do you think this was written:

"...at some point in a...boom all aspects of property ownership become irrelevant except the prospect for an early rise in price. Income from the property, or enjoyment ot its use, or even its long-run worth are now academic...[they] may be non-existent or even negative. What is important is that...market values will rise...and a profit can be realised."

Sound like credit-default swaps to you?

It was written by J K Galbraith in 1954 in 'The Great Crash 1929'

But nobody saw it coming in 2007?

Away from home at the moment for work - testing out the internet access in my hotel room. Seems to work fine - currently waiting for an episode of Time Team to load in Channel4's youtube channel, which works fine using flash on Opera in Wine on FreeBSD. It's running now, so signing off to watch :-)

Maybe I'm wrong, but this seems tragic to me. We are approaching the very final end of the last of Byzantium:

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/08/26/wus.patriarch/index.html

Really interesting segment at the beginning of Mark Whittow's "The Making of Orthodox Byzantium". He is outlining the position of the Roman Empire in 600 (chapter 3), and specifically talking about the Monophysite controversy. His point is that historians have overplayed it's significance. In fact, differently nuanced Christians had more in common, and this gave them a common identity when compared to non-Christians. In fact, even provincial citizens considered themselves 'Christian' and 'Roman' rather than from smaller ethnic groups. There is a clear shared culture (but is this just the elite?).

In other words, this is Byzantium's historic achievement - to weld a cohesive state out of disparate parts, something which modern nation states seem very unsuccesful at doing.

I'm reading Michael Angold's Political History of Byzantium 1025-1204 at the moment. There's a really interesting section in there about the search for a new policy under Constantine Monomachos, and it's ultimate failure. I think there's the bones of a discussion here about growth and change in the Byzantine economy, and it's impact on politics. Following Alan Harvey's thesis about growth in the 11th century economy - Constantine Monomachos' administration is fostering this as a route to prosperity, and stepping the atate down from it's war footing - hence the runing down of the themes. I think Haldon has also pointed out that employing professional soldiers ('mercenaries') is a rational decision. I guess what I'm working towards is the idea that there is a nascent blossoming in civil society which is abruptly cut short after Manzikert and the capture of the state by the feudal aristocracy (Comnenus) who run the administration in the narrow interests of their own class.

BBC report about the diagnostic brain scan for autism:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/mobile/health-10929032

The BBC article on the new brain scan to diagnose autism was an interesting piece on a number of levels. First of all, it focussed very strongly on adults with high functioning autism. This is a group which doesn't tend to receive a lot of coverage - which usually highlights children specifically, and lower functioning autism generally.

Second it included the phrase "autism is a disabling and little understood condition". This is very true, but most recent press has sought to highlight how parents 'celebrate' their child's autism. Whilst I love my son dearly, I never want anyone to lose sight of the enormous negative impact autism will have on his life. He is disabled, and that doesn't mean he won't live a happy and fulfilled life, but it does mean that that life will be much much harder (and probably poorer) than his peers. To focus too hard on celebrating difference seems to me to verge on denying how hard life for someone with autism will be. So that phrase is the most insightful thing I've seen on TV about autism for a very long time.

Third, it said nothing about what this scan tells us about what causes autism. I suspect that this encapsulates the current scientific position. Progress has been made on identifying what autism is (ie. what the brain of someone with autism looks like) but we are a long way from understanding what makes their brain look like that. And if we don't understand the underlying cause, then all this scan delivers is a better understanding of the symptoms. In other words, we are no where near either prevention or cure.

But at least it was a more realistic picture than is normally given of the reality of autism for most people - and Rain Man was nowhere to be seen!

I agree with Michael White's analysis of the folly of PCS tactics:

http://m.guardian.co.uk/?id=102202&story=http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/blog/2010/jul/05/michael-white-government-civil-servants

Serwotka has been a disaster. But 40% cuts? My god!

Couple of books I need to look out for cheap - Byzantine Aesthetics, and Three Byzantine Saints.

'I warn you not to fall ill, I warn you not to grow old....'. After the budget, how right Jonathan Freedland was to quote Neil Kinnock:

http://m.guardian.co.uk/?id=102202&story=http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/may/05/1983-cameron-victory-kinnocks-words

I've been reading a couple of reviews of Edward Luttwak's 'Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire' on the byzans mailing list. Both quite critical, and having read it I have to agree. This is a shame because I thought his earlier book on the Roman empire very insightful. This new book however is ful of fairly simple errors. It also takes a very simplistic view of what underpins Byzantine strategy. In common with the reviews I have read, I am not convinced it all boiled down to the experience of facing Attilla. It does seem clear that there was a close relationship betwen the Byzantium and the people of the steppe, but Luttwak's Doesn't seem to bring out the complexities. All in all, a disappointing follow up.

Other than that, I have just finished Runciman's 'Fall of Constantinople'. This book is in a different league. It may be little dated now, but for a narrative telling of a truly tragic story with real pathos, I don't think you cpuld beat it.

I am also ploughing through part 2 of the old Cambridge Medieval History volume IV. Also a good read, although again a little dated.

Larry Elliott is spot on about the latest cuts:

http://m.guardian.co.uk/ms/p/gmg/op/s7_TBYc3TDp3rrz3VgWirMw/view.m?id=473305&tid=120787&cat=Recession

Paul Krugman neatly summing up where the Tory's economic policies will take us:

http://mobile.nytimes.com/article?a=614230&f=112&sub=Columnist

Interesting news from Osborne's new Office for Budget Reponsibility. It strikes me that this negates the case for harsh cuts this year. Growth is fragile. but borrowing is lower than first thought. Doesn't this make the case for maintaining spending stronger - to keep what growth there is in the economy? With borrowing lower the cuts are not so pressing, but cuts risk pumping up unemployment and dragging us into a downward spiral.

Removing first class travel is a perfect example. I used to travel to London first class for around £74 each way. Now I cannot go first class. However, Virgin then restructure their fares, and the cheap tickets are no longer available. I now travel standard class for £100 each way. The end result of a public sector cut is a profits dilemma for a private supplier - and the end result a net loss for the taxpayer (I pay more for my travel).

Interesting times indeed.

Sunshine at the weekend? Must be barbecue time!

What should be made of the government's publication of the COINS data? For starters, it is obviously the spending of the last government that is under scrutiny. I wonder whether they will be so keen to release this data next year. I think it also risks another step towards government by tabloid media. This was pretty bad under Labour. With everything open to view, this will provide the cover for the government to cut lots of worthy projects under cover of the Mail's righteous indignation. it's going to make some programmes very difficult to fund indeed. I fear that what we may end up with is not open democracy but demagoguery. I hope I'm proven wrong (and I may have a go at getting it into a usable database myself - sounds like a fun project).

Posting this from my new phone, which is an HTC S710 bought to replace my S620. Now I really liked the S620, but it was ugly and starting to age a bit. I really miss Palm, so I tried a Treo 500 but the keyboard was awful and it wouldn,t hold a data signal - although it was a really pretty phone. So now I'm on the S710. I like it, but the slider is a little loose. I'll give it a go and see how I get on with it. The keyboard may take some getting used to as well. At least it made me re-look at software. I'm posting this from moBlog.

This echoes an article Polly Toynbee wrote some time ago - parents just want fair access to a good local school, not the madness of the "choice" agenda.

Simon Jenkins also touches something which has been a theme of my work over the last few years. Improvement is not always (or even often) about changing structures - although this is the bit that's easiest to focus on. It's also about people, skills, and partnerships.

http://m.guardian.co.uk/ms/p/gmg/op/sCgxO4xXL9KWuj41C1_S3Xg/view.m?id=449311&tid=120787&cat=Comment

ROFLMAO, finally we've discovered how to fund the royal family (until the revolution):

http://m.guardian.co.uk/ms/p/gmg/op/ssuym8meTKmT5iLRAfqL-dQ/view.m?id=447135&tid=120787&cat=Comment

Indeed:

http://m.guardian.co.uk/ms/p/gmg/op/sJ-i7D14rWoHR-DQO91AOkg/view.m?id=446804&tid=120787&cat=Comment

Some photos taken on the Wirral Coastal Walk on Sunday. If they're awful, remember I was walking 15 miles and it was very hot!

And this is just the start. The claws are out already, as the Tories return to type as the 'nasty' party.

http://m.guardian.co.uk/ms/p/gmg/op/sksObj0QCuMLe3RtcOrYA_w/view.m?id=116498&cat=Comment

I've started the Wirral Coastal Walk. Check for updates on Twitter.

Hour and a half fiddling to get wpa_supplicant working on my Lenovo ideapad. It just wouldn't go. Set up the link, but then I was having to run dhclient manually. Well the answer was hidden on someone else's blog - the line in rc.conf needs to be:

ifconfig_wlan0="WPA SYNCDHCP"

Instead of:

ifconfig_wlan0="WPA DHCP"

Must be to do with using the ndis module, it needs the pause to connect. Sadly, this doesn't seem to be documented in either the wpa_supplicant or dhclient manpages :-(

I will be completing the Wirral Coastal Walk on Sunday in support of Alex's school, and I'll be tweeting my progress as I go. It's 15 miles, which will be a stretch for me - especially as it looks like it will be hot.

I may also find time to blog about my unhappy experience with a Palm Treo 500v. Being a big fan of Palm I was expecting great things, but this was a real disappointment. After a week I'm back to my HTC S620, which is far more ugly but much more functional. I still miss Palm OS though.

Never has the ability of capitalism to sacrifice the wellbeing of us all the the sake of the profits (and bonuses) of 200 individuals been made more clear:

http://m.guardian.co.uk/ms/p/gmg/op/snZWu31IGw6xOI7nF8dg6uA/view.m?id=439624&tid=120787&cat=News

Of course, I wasn't ever really going to vote Conservative. But I'm disgusted that she couldn't even be bothered to reply...

Text of an email I sent today to Esther Mcvey, Conservative candidate for Wirral West:

Esther,

I sent an email to you a short while ago via the National Autistic Society webis
te asking for your views on autism. My son has autism, and if I were to vote for
you I would want to know that you were at least interested in the rights of, an
d issues surrounding, people with autism.

You didn't reply. I'm very disappointed. I am now reconsidering my vote. How do
you intend to support people with autism in Wirral if elected?


Regards,


Peter Harrison.

Another train journey home after a productive couple of days in London. Met with some colleagues yesterday - building bridges to the rest of my new team. Today was a reflection day for the talent management programme I'm involved in, so plenty of thinking about what has gone well the last six months, and what the plan is for the next six. Good to be able to take some time out of the day job and reflect on where I'm up to. I'm going to miss being able to do that when the programme finishes.

I think Larry Elliot has got this spot on. I particularly agree that this is a good election to lose.
http://m.guardian.co.uk/ms/p/gmg/op/sjhooUMikweauj41C1_S3Xg/view.m?id=400919&tid=120787&cat=Economics

But the tragedy for the left has to be that when the great crisis came it was in government and took the blame, instead of outside with a winning manifesto promising to end the capitalist nightmare.

After another pause in blog entries... we were away for a week at Easter. A cottage in Shropshire. Very pleasant indeed, with lots of good walking. Highlight was the "Stiperstones". 5 miles up a hill (500 metres) in glorious sunshine. Marvellous. Welshpool and Llanfair railway ran it close though - a really delightful little line running up into the hills.

Following the election campaign quite closely, mostly on Twitter via @GdnPolitics. I have my Labour poster up (first time in years) but am concerned that the Lib Dem surge will open the way for the Conservatives to win more seats than the pundits seem to think they will.

Trying to think of a way to tell my sister that I don't want the joint 40th birthday party she seems to be planning. Failing.

Last weekend was another fantastic walk - probably my favourite one that's within travelling distance of home - Penycloddiau in the Clywdian range. Wonderful ridge line walking with a view of (snow capped) Snowdon.

More updates to follow, but I'm now using Twitter more than I was, so follow @4harrisons if you want to know where I'm up to.

This just made me laugh out loud: http://twitpic.com/1h5bzj

I think this poster is a mistake http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/blog/2010/apr/20/1. All it says to me is that the Conservative party hasn't changed at all - this is a poster that could have been used by Thatcher. It seems to me that it just reinforces Clegg's message about tired old politics.

Brief note. Been on leave, therefore no blog entries for a while (I don't like to blog while I'm away from home). Gobsmacked by the influence of the first TV debate on the general election, and proud possessor of a Guardian 'posh boy' t-shirt (http://www.guardian.co.uk/poshboy).

Another blog post written on a train. This time written in the morning on the train to London, to be uploaded to the blog later when I get home.

I've just finished reading Luttwak's "The Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire" and rereading Sewter's translation of Psellos' "Chronographia". I found Luttwak's latest much less persuasive than his "Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire" of 30 years ago. That book made a strong case for a rational outline of Roman grand strategy. The current work felt far less coherent. Nor does he make the case which I expected him to around the applicability of the Byzantine approach to strategy in a world where our enemies can never truly be 'beaten' in the Napoleonic sense. I thought the one point he does make fairly coherently - that the Byzantines understood the states and peoples around them and adjusted their thinking to suit - is made more concisely in the last section of the "Oxford Handbook of Byzantine Studies". Still an enjoyable read though.

It was also interesting that I could read echoes of this in the later sections of Chronographia - particularly from Isaac Comnenos on - where, reading between the lines, it seems evident that Psellos is a practitioner of this grand strategy. I can't give the reference as I don't have the book with me, but there is a section where he talks about building allies with the peoples north of the Danube preparatory to military action in the East.

What struck me more though on this reading of Psellos, again in the sections from Isaac onwards, was the conflict between the military and civil parties. I'm not sure to what extent this is still part of current thinking on 11th. century Byzantium, but Psellos seems to clearly outline the beginnings of the run down to the capture of the state by the feudal aristocracy - with Isaac and Romanos IV being 'forerunners'. To pick up Alan Harvey's theories, as the economy expands, the civil aristocracy increasingly promotes this changing economy bringing it into conflict with the landed nobility. This aristocracy based more on land, military prowess, and informal 'feudal' relationships becomes more prevalent, and cannot tolerate the changes being encouraged by the civil party - and to some extent the diminution of it's role in the changed strategic situation of the 11th. century (see the treatment of the generals leading to Isaac's revolt). It captures the state to promote it's own narrow class interest - leading eventually to a catastrophic change in grand strategy (Romanos IV war in the East, bolstering a class based on military exploits in the East).

I would argue that this supports a Marxist view of 11th. century Byzantine history. Economic change and development leading to a revolutionary change as different classes vie for control of the mechanisms of government. Alexios then is not the hero who saves the state, but the confirmation of the victory of the military feudal class.

I think you can see some of this happening in the later sections of Psellos.

Psellos book 6, 122-3 on the end of Tornicius is very similar to the description of the fall of Michael V. Two companions dragged from a sanctuary, one weak, the other courageous.

Me in my (new) silly hat on top of Moel Famau.

Psellus book 6, 82. Maniaces:

"...knew that victories are won not by mere numbers but by skill and experience, and so he picked out for his army those who had the most practical acquaintance with war..."

Supports some of Luttwak's comments about the Byzantine approach to the military and the use of small numbers of well trained troops.

Where does this fit with the degradation of thematic troops during the 11th century?

Finally, an article in the press expressing an opinion in tune with how I feel about the recent fuss over social work:

http://m.guardian.co.uk/ms/p/gmg/op/sH8Ac_DVd3sAPSkOd_cicLg/view.m?id=359156&tid=120787&cat=Politics

Travelling back from London again. This time I'm hooked up to the wireless network on the train and can therefore blog from my netbook. Interesting process for doing this. I had to su to root, and then change the entry for wlan0 in /etc/rc.conf to 'ifconfig_wlan0="DHCP"' and then run dhclient from the command line. That said, the process wasn't too onerous and once I'd figured out what to do I was up and running in no time. The main delay was figuring out dhclient - I have static routing set up at home for my FreeBSD boxes. Anyway, the short story is that it was nowhere near as difficult as I was expecting it to be - I've never really done wireless networking outside of home before, except with the Windows Mobile (gakh) 'phone.

Coming into Crewe now, so should be back in Lime Street shortly. There was a brief scare at Euston when the alarms went off and they evacuated the station. I thought I was either going to get blown up, or be very delayed in getting home. But whether it was some sort of mistake or not I don't know - they called us all back in within 5 minutes. No delays and everything's been fine so far thank goodness.

Still trying to learn C programming. I'm not finding this easy (although I'm probably making this harder than it needs to be ny using K&R). Perl still feels like a very 'natural' language to me. The main reason for learning C is so that I can learn to use GTK and program a speech app for Alex to do his homework with using Festival. Yes, I know I could do this in Perl, but the opportunity to learn C seemed like the motivation I needed to finally get off my bum and do it.

All reasonably well at home, I just need the weather to turn around so that we can get out of the house a bit more at the weekend. The looming battle over Alex's secondary school is still just far enough over the horizon for me to stay in denial for a little while longer at least.

And I haven't even mentioned the fiasco on Mother's Day when I undercooked the pork for Deb's Mum and Dad, and had to be rescued by Deb!

Still back into Elvis after going to the show a week or so ago. Relistening to 'Artist of the Century' (which, if you remember, I bought from the Amazon marketplace for one pound). More and more interested in the 70's work.

Leaving Crewe now, so will get back to reading K&R (maybe).

Another good article by Polly Toynbee in today's Guardian:

http://m.guardian.co.uk/ms/p/gmg/op/s7E9ouII5y435iLRAfqL-dQ/view.m?id=350713&tid=120787&cat=Politics

PCS are on strike. I can't help thinking that striking at a time like this really isn't going to work - even though I agree with the sentiments behind the strike. Why do the government want to change the terms for redundancy payments now? The only plausible answer is that they are considering mass redundancies over the coming years. I don't support the argument that it is appropriate to bring the civil service into line with the private sector either. Conditions in the civil service are different - pay at the lower ends is generally poorer, but is by and large tolerated because some of the other benefits - pensions, flexible working - are good. Start to strip away the benefits and the case for putting basic pay in line with the private sector becomes stronger. And yet the civil service is facing zero pay rise next year (after years of pay increases around 1% when the private sector was getting 5%).

So the cause is justified, but the strike is still misguided. Public perception of civil servants is dreadful at the best of times. Striking over conditions at this time is not the way to win it over.

Mark Serwotka it seems to me is overly bellicose, enjoying the power of "everybody out!" far more than taking practical steps to protect his members.

So in the end nobody wins. Certainly not the civil servants who lose 2 days pay, and a lot of public sympathy, as well as their redundancy rights.

A very poor picture of Elvis at the "Elvis Presley in Concert" show last night. Picked up a spare ticket at the last minute from an old friend.

Fabulous show. It did really rather a good job of evoking the atmosphere of a concert, even though the lead singer wasn't actually there. The band was good, if a little old now (artists who had worked with Elvis in the 70's).

Stand out moments were 'How Great Thou Art', 'Heartbreak Hotel', and 'Suspicious Minds'.

The crowd was a little odd though - quite a few jump suits and wigs...

Doing quite a lot of work in Visual Basic at the moment, which is distressing. I've done quite a bit with this using VBA for Excel in work (still going on that too). But I've now downloaded VB 2008 Express Edition from Microsoft and installed it on Alex's computer. Starting toying with it to develop a timer for when Alex switches it on - to try to make him turn if off after a certain amount of time. I've managed to get quite far with it in not too long at all really - to the point of being able to make the computer switch off after a specified time, while displaying a progress bar counting the time down. The plan eventually is to make it play a sound file telling Alex it's time to turn off. I may even post it here when it's done.

This really made me laugh:

http://xkcd.com/705/

Alex wanted a barbecue today so...19th February and first barbecue of the year!. Freezing cold and a disposable tray, but the sausages tasted great!

Right then, here are the URL's for my little Perl blogging things:

http://freespace.virgin.net/four.harrisons/beelog/beelog
http://freespace.virgin.net/four.harrisons/beelog/Blogging.pm

Feedback welcome!

Psellos book 3:

"...the sea beyond the pillars of Hercules was explored..."

Long distance trade with the west? The Franks? Britain?

Ouch:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/feb/02/border-staff-asylum-seekers-whistleblower

So here it is. After quite a bit of work, this is my first proper post from my Perl script for sending updates to Blogger. Needed a bit of final debugging, but hopefully it's working now. It comes in two main parts - first an object oriented module encapsulating methods to authenticate and send data to Google. This makes use of LWP::UserAgent, but isn't as hard as it sounds, once you've built up the courage to read the basics in the Google documentation online. The module also holds the basic data required - username, password, blog id that kind of thing. The second part is a user application which manages some nice things like commandline switches, config files, and specifying which text editor you want to use (or using standard input if you want).

Well, assuming it works, I'll post the source online somewhere. I'm sure the Perl is quite amateurish, but you have to start somewhere - and this is the first time in a while I've managed to finish something that's helpful to me so I guess I'm quite proud really. Even if it is just scratching an itch and not the world's most important coding project.

Now what's my next Perl project going to be?

Thaw? What thaw? Moel Famau in the snow yesterday was like walking somewhere in the Alps. Fun, but a little scary in parts.

Sitting on top of Moel Famau eating mince pies and drinking hot chocolate in the snow! Pictures to follow later.

From "Change in Byzantine Culture" on classical literature:

The allusive commentary on current affairs that the literary fiction of the empire masked with antiquated vocabulary and traditional subjects was thoroughly undersotood...by its readers...such manipulation of the familiar texts...might...suggest political sensitive ideas to contemporaries.

I'm gobsmacked. The Guardian - as in used to be the Manchester Guardian - has a piece today on top 50 TV dramas. At 26? Coronation Street, where the reviewer notes "it's probably too late to catch up from the start of the Yorkshire soap..."

I'm lost for words.

Another good final chapter summary from "Change in Byzantine Culture":

The reemergence of urban life, with its attendant revival of the provinces in Byzantium during the eleventh and twelfth centuries, contributed to the decentralizing tendencies of the state. This is reflected in the culture by the introduction of popular elements, especially in art, literature, and communal pastimes. Concurrently, with the shift toward feudalization, the status of the bureaucracy of the centralized state declined. The virtues of the new military aristocracy became socially dominant, permeating even the image of the emperor.

Daily dose of Byzantium (from 'Art and Liturgy' in the Oxford Handbook of Byzantine Studies):

Though the liturgy profoundly influenced the choice of themes, Byzantine liturgical imagery always maintained its independence from a precise liturgical moment or interpretation. By linking past, present, and future through the sacred image, this art aimed to provide a contact with the divine that paralleled, rather than merely illustrated, that offered by the liturgy itself.

Some pictures from the trek home last night. I think I must have caught almost the last cross river bus out of Liverpool. That got me as far as Birkenhead. Then it was a 7 mile walk back home - accompanied by dozens of other commuters - watching cars and buses spin out on the roads as we walked. The trees are Birkenhead Park, which looked beautiful in the snow. Couldn't resist snapping a picture.

Buses still off, so have been at home today. The roads are like ice rinks.

More pictures in the snow.

Fantastic time playing in the snow on the foot of Moel Famau. Can't believe how different the weather is. Not evena frost here, but at Moel Famau we were in foot deep snow (probably the deepest I've ever seen personally) and having difficulty driving on the access road. Even needed a push once!