Adverse Weather

All week Bellevue has been shrouded in fog. Not the death-dealing stuff that's festering in Beijing currently, just cold wet air that saps the warmth out of you if you're dumb enough to walk the mile and a half from the hotel to the office. As the days have passed, the runs I've taken from the hotel have got shorter and shorter, until I fled for ten minutes this morning, before returning shamefacedly to the lobby.

Leaving on a jet plane ... eventually

It was too good to be true; we got to Heathrow unbelievably quickly, the roads through London clear, perhaps because everyone else was staying inside. A few flakes fell on us as we went through Wandsworth, but the weather wasn't too bad.

We checked in, dropping off the world's biggest bag full of paperback books, strolled through security, and then somehow I managed to smuggle my wife into the Cathay Pacific lounge for free. It's not as nice as the lounge at Hong Kong (few things are) but it was nicer than being crammed into the departure area with what felt like the rest of London. I stuffed myself full of biscuits and when there was only an hour to go before take-off, we trundled down to the gate.

It looked unusually packed. This didn't seem like such a good sign. Outside, the snow was falling more heavily now.

Let it snow (a little bit later, please)

And so, as our holiday in England comes to an end, snow begins to fall on Heathrow, and according to Heathrow's website, it will be heavy snow from 9pm.

Wintermission

The snow continued to fall today - we were promised nothing but warm(er) rain, but instead there was pretty snow bedecking all the buildings. Cajoled by a colleague, I went to the office, to find a ghost town of abandoned cubicles. Every meeting was cancelled, something that provoked me to paroxysms of rage. It was as if nobody else had ever thought of using the telephone to communicate: like emus, if they can't see you, some people in the office think they can't hear you either.

Snow again

After yesterday's frankly lacklustre effort, the Northwest made up for things with a big dump of the white stuff all over Seattle. I looked out the window and it was like Christmas morning all over again.

The wrong kind of snow

Another day passes, and Seattle inches closer to Snowmageddon, or Snowpocalypse, or Holofrost, or some other world-ending event with a chilly theme.

Snowing, working and sleeping

Today I looked out the window, to see snow, glittering on the trees outside the hotel. I had my breakfast and then got driven up to the hotel, with the dread warning that there would be no car to ferry me home in the evening, because of the snow.

Like driving on ice

They don't salt the roads in Seattle, because the run-off would pollute the water and harm the fishing industries. Which is good for the environment and the salmon, but it means that with a little bit of snow like today, the roads get rather slippery.