Ruddy snow

We could handle the cold but when the snow hit us in the South-East a week or so ago we were slightly overwhelmed to say the least. Everything ground to a halt for several days, shops and supermarkets were blitzed by panic buyers who seemed to think the end of the world was nigh, everyone gave up any idea of leaving their homes and going to work, schools were shut in their droves and all hatches were battened down.

To say that flying has been out of the question is an understatement. Linton itself didn’t get anything like the amount of snow that we did at home (see pic below) but Bob reported that getting onto the airfield was well nigh impossible in a normal car initially because of ice and then because of mud when the snow that did settle (about 6 inches) began to melt. It has since frozen again so at the time of writing, we still have the worst of both worlds.

Here at home we got the best part of 3 feet of snow and after more than a week, we still have about a foot of frozen snow and paths that are solid ridged sheets of ice that to walk on is to take your life in your hands. The picture below was taken looking out of my conservatory window into my small back garden.

We thought the snow was bad enough last Winter but we have already had much more than we did then and so much earlier too. We rarely get snow this side of Christmas and I hear that this is the coldest start to Winter for well over 20 years. We are expecting a bit of a thaw in the next day or so but that will be rather relative as the temperature is unlikely to get much above freezing, so it’ll be doubtful that the snow will melt much before it freezes again. So there’s a big question mark over whether any flying will again be possible on either this coming Saturday or Sunday.

So I’ve been taking a bit of time over the past few days looking at video editing software as hopefully when the weather does at some time begin to pick up and I’m able to start flying over longer distances, I’ll be getting my camcorder on the go more and more. I’ve tried many packages but the ones I’ve come out most in favour of are Corel Video Studio Pro X3 (the same as what Tony H-S uses and recommended by him, so thanks Tony), Pinnacle Studio 14 Ultimate HD, and either Cyberlink Power Director or Magix Movie Edit Pro 17, although for me both of the latter come some way behind the first two. I’m currently favouring the Corel package and having put together a video of my landing back at Linton after my flight to Essex on 6th November initially using Moviemaker (free), then Pinnacle and ultimately Corel Video Studio Pro X3, none of which I put into the gallery here on My Trike, I’ve now decided to include the Corel-created version. You can see it by clicking on the pic below.

I’ve still got several days of the free trials to go before I need to make up my mind (getting a bit tight on Pinnacle mind…) so I’m not about to dash out cash in hand to make a purchase just yet. And anyway, who knows what Santa Claus might bring 😉