Ice

A seven hour journey home after spending Christmas at my mother's flat in Darlington.

I was worried that we'd be affected by the dreadful weather that hit the Midlands last night but the journey, which usually takes five-and-a-half hours these day, was mostly fine apart from a couple of heavy congestion spots. Frustratingly, the last of these, which held us up for half-an-hour, was just four miles from home when I was already dreaming of tea and cake.

We had to scrape ice of the car before we could set off this morning. The patterns on the windscreen reminded me of ferns.