From our Preston correspondent

This morning Gina did her one up all up routine showering and general noise,before departing for work,luckily the two guests were already awake,and are old hands at this anyway,so here I am blogging at 7.30am having woke up at around 6am.
We survived the maniacs on the M62 motorway,and arrived yesterday complete with a pantechnicon load of food,and luggage,a bemused Andrew thought the unloading process was never coming to an end,and all three of us correctly forecast Gina's response when she came home from work,"Why have you brought all this food?",much has been made of the snow here in lancashire but conditions on the minor roads of lincolnshire were much worse,3 bridge lane(a road Sonia will know well) was particularly hazardous with the roadside dykes a threat to the unwary driver,and crossing the wolds the roads were covered in black ice,but the roadside trees looked spectacular with their coating of snow and ice sparkling in the sun.
Read Montana Mike's blog already and it reminded me of the real winter weather we encountered on our visit to their place in Kansas,we went out sightseeing in much worse conditions than the ones we are encountering here now,but the motorways were all clear though minor roads were icy and snow covered,I remember visiting Topeka a town not unlike Rotherham,and it was so cold we couldn't walk around in it,on the way back we visited Leavenworth and saw the infamous penitentiary,very forbidding.
I am off out now for a paper,strange having a paper shop in walking distance,but that's city living
for you, so today is Christmas eve,the old festival of Yuletide which the Christians adopted to suit their purpose,even moving the birthday of their "saviour"to suit,but as they say whatever floats your boat,so Merry Christmas , Huurva Juula and Buon Natale. Graham