As January drew to a close, we have been battered by severe gales and to-day the North East of England suffered heavy and prolonged snowfall. In fact, over towards the West on high ground the news were reporting that motorists were trapped in their cars and had to be rescued, and in several towns and villages primary schools were closed. We have been warned that temperatures will drop to at least minus 5C tonight and snow and slush will freeze, causing more problems!
I am pleased to say that as far as we can see, the only damage we've had has been to the bird feeders which were smashed as they were hurled around the garden - the bird table, wooden benches and chairs etc were blown about the lawn but no tiles have come off the roof. I stayed indoors today and baked bread, teacakes and sticky buns - I would have included a picture of the sticky, spicy, fruited enriched bread goodies, but all of which were demolished by my family before 6.0pm
The heathers in my garden are beginning to colour up beautifully, it won't be long before they are a blaze of colour. Last Sunday we had a fine, sunny but cold day after three days of gale force winds and I took a few photos to show that even with all this bad weather, there are still beautiful things to look at
Pink wallflowers
Wind blowing through the bare trees in a lane near us - honestly, the branches were being lashed by the gale but this is the best photo I got!
Shrub in my garden - notice the fat little buds! Can't remember it's name, sorry
There seems to be an abundance of mole hills near where we live, thankfully, there are none in my garden - yet! I did have a mole in my garden a few years ago, and it caused havoc
Snowdrops in a neighbours garden
Spring is on the way - my daffodils have buds
Even the daisies are popping up in the grass
Despite the atrocious gales, snow and frosts, see how my little yellow patio rose has buds ready to open!
When the weather is bad, I always feel like being in the kitchen and baking - this lemon meringue pie I made on Wednesday was mouthwateringly good, even if I say so myself - there wasn't a scrap left by bedtime - whatever happened to our new year diet?
We've enjoyed some beautifully sunny days with clear blue skies, but the overnight frosts have been very thick - but very pretty. These are photographs taken during the past week are of plants in my garden, early morning before the sun melted the frost.
Frost so thick, it almost looks like snow
Isn't he cute? This little squirrel was photographed in the rose garden in Saltwell Park, Gateshead - it helped that other visitors were encouraging their grandchildren to scatter peanuts to attract the family of squirrels.
This little patch seems to be doing OK
It started off very wet this morning, but by lunchtime it poured with snow. I work at river level, but live on high ground - my lovely hubby managed to collect me at lunchtime but it took ages to get home as we got higher and higher! Traffic everywhere as Dunston Bank and Whickham Bank were closed due to the snow. Its forecast for minus 3 tonight, so if this lot doesn't turn back to rain and melt away, we're going to have a jolly old time getting to work in the morning! It's a long time since I've seen a snow plough clearing the roads, but we passed two on the way home from work. Here are a couple of photos of the garden, plus 
a very nice pigeon with a white tail who visited the bird table at the weekend. If anyone knows what kind of pigeon this is, please leave a comment.
As well as eight hard boiled eggs, it contained a fillet of pork, a pound of pork sausages, a tin of lean ham. a chicken breast and a small onion, all wrapped in a hot-water-crust pastry. I served it for tea on Sunday and it had almost disappeared by bed time!! I will be making this again between Christmas and New Year.
I love winter pansies - such cheerful little plants and no trouble at all. I've got them in pots and borders. The flowers will die off as the weather gets worse, but they'll bounce back in the Spring. 
My wallflowers can't wait until Spring !!
Poor, sad, collapsed hydrangea - this is the hydrangea that collapsed under the weight of it's huge flowers back in the Summer when we had all that terrible rain. I'll have to be brave and give it a good old prune!!
