The Big Freeze!

If I've been very quiet here it's because I have no internet access. Probably because of the weather, my router, my broadband filter and my broadband connection have all been trashed!    I'm posting this quickly at work in a gap left by a student cancellation.   We have a lot of snow here, though not as much as east of the Pennines, and there have been electric storms with thunder and lightning mixed in too.  I made it to Wendy's book launch (lovely party!)  but then woke up to six inches of snow and eveything frozen solid.  It took two hours to dig the car out because we live down a lane at the bottom of a steep hill which doesn't get used by anyone else.  Since then I've left the car on the main road.
On Saturday I managed to get to a literature festival event where I was booked to do a talk on Katherine Mansfield, but had to abandon the car at one point and walk the last three quarters of a mile on streets like ice-slides.  Driving back (very carefully) the temperature plummeted to -11 degrees.  It's rather like living in Scandinavia, though at the moment it's a bit warmer over there.   Hot water bottles, furry slippers, scarves, gloves, thermal underwear - you name it, I'm using it!  Even the cat is curled up on a cushion next to the radiator with his nose under his tail.  If I look at him he opens one eye as if to say 'If you think I'm moving, you must be mad!'
Hope to have the internet up and running again tomorrow when I've solved the mysteries of network connections and ISP addresses.