I can’t believe that today has turned out like it has. It started off quite stupidly from my point of view because I got back to my hotel last night late, a bit squiffy and when I pulled out my train ticket to check the time I needed to be at the station, I looked at my outbound ticket, not my inbound one so I ended up at the station an hour earlier than I needed to be – stupid!!!

The weather was bitingly cold so I’d got cold to the core before I even set foot onto the train. There was frost in the south east – lots of it…..as I went further and further west, it was increasingly obvious that the white stuff I could see was more snow and less frost. But the sky was blue, the sun was out and I was very hopeful of getting home no problem.

I spoke to David and we compared snow depth stories which sounded about the same in terms of depth - then I realised DM was complaining about it snowing….not snowed – it was still happening! Yikes!

My train got slower and slower. It ground to a halt at Plymouth. I waited on Plymouth Station in bitter, bitter cold – if I’d thought I’d been cold when I was at Reading, I was severely mistaken. I phoned David and he gave me the news that he couldn’t get out of our village because of the snow so he couldn’t pick me up from the station. We made a hurried plan that I’d walk to the town, buy some walking boots and a torch then set off for the four miles or so walk, with two heavy bags and get home whenever I could.

An hour and a half later, I managed to board another train onwards into Cornwall and the snow was horizontal – and not just on the ground!!!! Eventually, after an age (or so it seemed), we pulled into the station and it was like a scene from a fairy tale. It soon lost its fairy dust when I stepped onto the platform and into six inch deep snow. My heart sank.

I rang DM, updated him about my whereabouts and cried like a baby when he told me the wonderful news that a neighbour with a four by four had volunteered to come down to the station and collect me. I was instructed to go into the station’s waiting room, get a hot drink and wait.

They arrived about forty minutes later and I was amazed at the huge number of abandoned cars along the road home – people had assumed they’d make it but ended up having to walk. We just about got in, picking up another neighbour’s son who we found walking en route so a little tatty group of travellers arrived home in the village safe and sound thanks to my new hero, Champ. He is Champ by name and now I know that it’s not just his name but his nature too – what a complete star he is.

There was about an hour until dark so I wanted to walk the dogs before settling down to finish my day’s work. As we walked out into the street, we joined the village charabanc of people, dogs, children, sleighs and snowballs and wound our walk along the street, out onto the moor, where a snowball fight and sleighing fest ensued, the likes of which has not been seen here before.

While we were on the moor, we could see this spectacular sight – broody, dark sky, blue-white (no, not the wrong white balance, this was how it looked) snow and a Royal Navy Search and Rescue helicopter travelling along the route of the A38 – our other trunk route into the county – checking the route and looking for problems.

I didn’t know whether to feel happy that I’d got home (and what a home) or pissed off that my need to work in London on a night when I should have been on my way home nearly prevented me from getting there.

We had to phone my folks who were en route to spend the weekend with us and turn them back, having heard that the main route into Cornwall had two hundred stranded cars on it, with five hundred poor souls trapped in them and unable to get home. Many of the roads in the county were closed and there were two thousand children trapped in schools with no way home. I’m sorry my Mum and Dad couldn’t get here but equally I’d have never forgiven myself if they’d ended up stranded in their car overnight.

Two years ago, I was bemoaning the rain and last year, I was loving the fire.