It snowed in Portsmouth for much of the night, and when I left the house to walk to the beach shortly after 7am, there was a thick layer of white crystals in our street, five inches or so.











Usually the sea front is a snarling mass of buses, vans and trucks. There were only a few cars out, churning carefully through the snow with muffled sounds.

Back at the house a friend sent me a text message, relaying news that his train had skidded past the station and had to be reversed back to the platform - by 10am most of the countries public transport was suspended.