'snow use worrying

It's been a bad week all round but not without little glimmers of relief.

The bad weather meant every plan for the week had to be cancelled so I spent far too much time in front of the computer searching the internet sites of immobilier for likely properties.

Normally here we have snow each winter with one heavy fall which causes major disruption for a day. This year we haven't really had any chaos ( despite neighbouring counties suffering) but the snow is continuing to fall and it is causing just enough problems to keep people in. First of all on Monday my French class was cancelled as the tutor's daughter's school shut, I couldn't get to a planned lunch with friends on Thursday and we had to postpone a visit to my parents in Bristol and our plans to take them to London to go on the London Eye. It's snowing heavily again now and we have been promised blizzards tomorrow night - so it goes on.

Our local supermarket shelves are pretty low and there is no salt to be had even for ready money. I have visions of everyone out there sprinkling their salt cellars on the drive!

But it wasn't all bad news - we heard from our neighbour in France that the flood level a few weeks back had been very high and had very likely breached the floodgates! Panic! We searched for a flight and were making plans for an emergency trip ( snow permitting of course), this weekend. Then to our great relief we managed to get hold of the plumber who has the keys to the house and he was able to reassure us that he has visited the house and been inside and although there is some mud on the floor the level of the water did not get high inside the house and has not caused any damage and most of all there was not a swimming pool trapped behind the floodgates.

Then amongst the continuing news coverage of the "downturn" and pages of reports about returning expat pensioners I was pleased to hear Halifax reporting a 1%INCREASE in house prices last month and the euro returning below 90p for the first time in ages to 87p. Perhaps this is a sign that things are at least going to stabilise a bit over the next few months and we 'll able to start our househunting with a better idea of what's possible.