From my office desk I see the evergreens a quarter of a kilometre away; they are peppered with naked orange branches of their deciduous family and gulls retreating from the coast. In the foreground I can see the low roof of the hospice next door, but nothing more except the white sky that foretells snow.
It arrives, a horizontal mix of flake, sleet and rain landing slushily and washing itself away. Soon my vista changes and I get my first clear view of the Haldon hills; where earlier today the A38 and A380 were down to single lane traffic crawling in the wake of gritter trucks. Those hills and the ones to the North West are white and can only be distinguished from the sky by their own dark tree fringe.
It’s just a fleeting glimpse and soon the snow here becomes a fine drizzle followed by heavy rain, which obscures the view again. Hopefully that will be the end of it.