They said it would snow overnight, but 7.00 a.m. and not a flake had fallen.

Today's school had a 100 mile round trip from Sleaford, so, before actually setting out for work, we did check whether the school and the bus company were still set on braving the elements.

They were, so I did too. My journey was somewhat of a scenic route as there was an accident near Barnetby where the A18, A180, M180 and A15 meet and I had to wriggle along some rather frosty back roads to avoid the tailback. As I headed west it got darker and darker, and by the time I reached Normanby it was snowing hard. It didn't last long although it looked very pretty and wasn't in a hurry to melt.

The school arrived a little later than expected, and we had a very good day with two workshops - Eyes to the Front (Victorian Schoolroom) [me] and History Detectives (Farm labourer's family in 1881) [Hilary]. The children were well prepared, nicely costumed, friendly, polite, lively . . . and so were the teachers and adult helpers. The one male (parent? classroom assistant?) was so unnervingly like a long ago boyfriend that at the end of the session I just had to ask whether he was related, but he wasn't that he knew of.

Afterwards Hilary and I went to the cafe to have hot chocolate and cream to toast our forthcoming birthdays which will happen during half-term. Hilary's is alarmingly the one which takes her nearer to 60 than 50, but she says she's quite looking forward to 60 when it comes and has long lists of adult education classes she plans to attend just as soon as she reaches the age when they are free. I shall be 26 again as usual. Sadly, my preferred age will be exactly half what it says on my birth certificate.

Thinking about what I said a couple of blogs back, it isn't just Victorian washdays which are to some extent a remembered reality for most of us, but are distant history to our younger colleagues; the same applies to the Victorian schoolroom, and to an extent to the unheated, bathroomless houses we show the children in History Detectives, Step Inside, Victorian Cottage and Living with the Land. We all remember frost flowers on the windows and getting dressed under our nighties to keep warm, and - though we may have lived in houses with bathrooms and indoor loos - I am sure that we all knew people whose only loo was in the back yard (albeit by our day it was a flush rather than a bucket). My grandad Turner's house had a proper upstairs bathroom, but an outside loo because my great-grandad (who built the house and its neighbours for his children) though it nasty and unhygienic to have such things indoors.