Day 63: Red sky in the morning

Snowman's warning. This morning we had two snow-people, a thick covering of snow (albeit much reduced) and a beautiful sunrise. When I got home from work, both heads had gone, but the scarves remained - no erroneous thermodynamics this time. In fact except for our front and back gardens, most of the snow in the area seems to have gone now. I'm not sure what we have done to deserve it, but I suspect that it will soon be gone. Temperatures peaked in the 60s today - that would have felt mild to us even before our New York recalibration.

One of the questions that comes up with from time to time is whether we have problems with driving on the other side of the road. In fact, since we arrived I have had no problems remembering which side to drive. One of the reasons I suspect is that driving here 'feels' very different. The cars are different (left-hand drive automatics), the roads are different and a large number of them are dual-carriageways (divided highways!) where if you were to attempt to drive on the wrong side you would drive past "Wrong Way" signs - assuming you did not reach another vehicle first.

The one thing that consistently terrified me was the sight of a school bus. Why? because I knew there was a law about them that I did not understand. Today, as I stopped on the other side of the road as one stopped and switched on his red flashing lights I realised that even this mystery had been solved. On one occasion recently I did make a mistake - but not with which side of the road to drive. I reached down to change gear. The reason for this aberration? I was approaching a roundabout (traffic circle!) - it is such a rare occurrence here and such a common one in the UK, it was enough to put me back into UK-driving mode. If I encounter many more, I'll probably lose my ability to turn right at red lights, overtake on the inside and (if I'm not careful) stop for those school buses.