It’s not easy to keep up the walking thing in this weather. I spent the whole morning yesterday, getting my mother to the Dentist and then going in to Monmouth, way down at the bottom of the hill that the Forest of Dean is at the top of, to get to the building society because our local branch closed down suddenly before Christmas.

After those two simple things it was two o’clock in the afternoon and I needed to get some work done.

However, as I slowly drove along the slippery roads I saw the view above. It seemed a quintessentially English, snowy scene. Staunton, is also a pretty quintessential English village – much like all the others a place of retirement and a dormitory for nearby towns. Few facilities but a strong community spirit that my mother gets drawn in to as she goes there for her painting classes.

It was a bit eerie stopping in the middle of the road. no cars in front no cars behind. This piece of road is the fastest in the forest – where frustrated drivers tend to open up the throttle for half a mile. Not yesterday. It was twenty miles an hour all the way down to Monmouth, occasionally being overtaken by a tractor. I managed to park outside The Woolworths, that has been closed over a year now. Iceland has taken over. And they had milk! none to be had in Coleford yesterday.