Can't get out today. The driveway, the deck, all the snow in the woods, everything is coated in ice. I don't even dare walk down the driveway to get the mail. And the big maple just outside the back door is entirely encased in ice – from trunk to twig! I nearly fell over when stepping gingerly out on to the deck to fill the bird feeders.

Looking out of the kitchen window is like looking through that dimpled glass you find in old shower doors. The outside of the double-glazed windows is entirely iced and, as you can see, partially opaque. But beyond are our winter replacements for the garden’s flowers. It’s all very well for everyone in California, Florida, the Pacific North West and, of course, in Britain. But here in Pennsylvania we haven’t seen a flower for outside for months. Instead we have the birds – they’re our “flowers” for the winter.

And boy are they having a tough time. Apart from the fact that the deck rail and the perches on the feeders are all iced and their poor little feet keep slipping off – yesterday’s blizzard of ice granules forced them to retreat into the evergreens. And today, the crashing of ice as it slid on to the deck sounded, as my wife judy put it, “like someone throwing a body off the roof”. And of course if it hit you on its way down, a body is exactly what you’d be!

But the solitary cardinal was back this morning, stuffing himself with sunflower seed. And a few weeks ago a flock of redpolls arrived for the first time since we’ve been here. They visit every day now, crowded wing-to-wing on the thistle feeder – I’ve counted sixteen at once and three waiting their turn.

So our weekend away is cancelled as the car would only slide off into the woods if were mad enough to venture down the driveway coated with an inch of solid ice. But the temperature has risen just enough for the window ice to melt so at least we can watch the birds. And now that the most helpful tech support agent in the history of sorrowfully calling help-lines has helped me get our wireless internet connection up and running again (thank you Canadian guy from Apple), well…now I can upload this. But now the temperature is dropping again...