Oh yes indeed, Bella but its more usual for it to snow up north and in Scotland nearer the arctic circle! However, from 2009 to 2011 we had three White Christmases on the trot - Bing Crosby would have been pleased - when we hadn't had any for decades and lots of snow in London but last winter not a single flake. This year we had a bit last week but it soon melted. However, nothing can beat the winter of 1962/63, the worst UK winter of all time when it started snowing in London on Christmas Eve and the snow was still hanging about nationwide in April and it was thick and deep too. I LOVED it! But adults seemed less pleased. However, I don't remember schools closing and buses stopping running like they do now - I hated school and I only wish mine had, then I could have had more time to play in the snow and go sledging. These days, a couple of flakes and everything grinds to a halt, during 2009 EVERY bus service in London was cancelled on one day after a heavy blizzard but it was still nowhere near as bad as 1963 and I don't remember buses packing up then. I live on top of a hill and in 2013, the last really heavy snowfall in London to date, buses that had started running gave up at the foot of the hill and left passengers to fend for themselves. With cars giving up as well, both sides of the hill where I live became gigantic sledging slopes with people utilising pieces of cardboard as sledges and careering down the hill in the centre of the road to great whoops of delight. It was rather ironic to hear people complaining about the snow while many others were out enjoying it!!!

Thanks, sherryann, I couldn't agree with you MORE that everybody who has been an influence on our lives should be remembered, especially when they died untimely deaths at very young ages. In a few weeks' time it will be the 16th anniversary of the passing of another British great and another of my ALL-TIME favourites, Dusty Springfield, aged just 59, so I will pay tribute to this DIVINE lady then, too. What a FABULOUS voice she had, she was, by far and away, the best of that clutch of British girl singers who emerged in the 1960s, e.g. Sandie Shaw, Cilla Black, etc.

I believe the word sledge became archaic in American English before 1900 and was replaced by the word sleigh until sled became the common name for that type snow conveyance. I still hear sleigh used in some areas though, particularly when the device is pulled by horses. Sleighs and sleds are constructed with runners while toboggans are flat bottomed devices for scooting over ice and snow.