Living in #Somerset for the past three years I've been getting accustomed to the generally wetter and windier climate to that of my #Sussex roots. Back there, it would be fairly common to experience snow most winters and even though my horse was several miles away there would always be a way of getting from A to B, even if it was hard work. And, apart from the Great Storm of '87, we were very lucky to live on the leeward side of the #South #Downs and thereby fairly sheltered from the worst winds that nature could summon. Since embedding ourselves here in this particular area of Somerset, neighbours have been telling us that snow is quite a rarity in these parts; that it has been 7 years or more since any significant snowfall and that winter is generally wet. That was until the 'beast from the east' came blowing in last week! The exceptional weather has hit a lot of people very hard, not just here, but in many parts of the UK. On facebook, one lady who runs a Riding Academy here in the southwest lamented that she has never experienced anything so extreme in all the 30 years of her owning #horses and #ponies. The severe sub-zero temperatures saw pipes #frozen, resulting in the enormous task of getting #food and #water to animals through the #snowdrifts, or getting emergency shelter arranged. Communities were cut off for days. Here, neighbours pulled together to dig out the snow to a vulnerable neighbour's house whose daily carer needed to get through and gritting the lane to the main road to make it passable. These things are mere folly of course compared to the sheer tragedy of homeless people left to freeze to death on British streets in 2018. (It would be easy for me to drift into a political tirade on that front, but will leave that for another time!) For now, simply enjoy some of the #picturesque #scenes from our #Somerset #Life over the past week!
