Day 82 - What a difference a day makes !

After Monday's mild weather it was hard to believe that we would see the forecast snow and at first light it was still mild, water unfrozen.  However from 9am a steady fall of dry powdery snow began and the temperature fell just as steadily.

By early afternoon we wondered if we would be going anywhere and half expected to hear that our flight to the UK had been cancelled.

When we left the house all was very white, and quiet.

At the airport it was also quiet as many internal flights were cancelled.  The snow continued to fall steadily but our aircraft was there and the flight due to board on time.

It was still snowing when we moved off the stand for the plane to be de-iced en route to the runway.

The de-icing process is barely discernible here due to the floodlighting and antifreeze being sprayed on the fuselage, wings and cockpit by men on cherry pickers with hoses (what a job).  This was followed by further spraying of an anti-icing agent to protect the plane.

After a delay of about an hour and a half we were on our way to Heathrow.