Cold and grey start with a shower of hailstones at midday - trying to brighten up now though (3.30pm) ... sorry to hear about the funeral.

Heavy rain and strong winds overnight and early morning,but a lovely sunny day again,but bitterly cold..not the best of days for you to attend a Funeral.Kath. :o(

Started off frosty and nice
Soon started raining and turned everything into sheet ice
Rained all morning.
Then got very cold and sun started to come out.
Then a huge flash of lightening followed by thunder
Massive hailstorm then ensued
More rain
Now it's calm, cold and clear.

I kid you not !!!!!

Sunny with temps around 4-7 C.

Hi Kath, we had heavy rain early morning, then sunshine until about 3pm, then clouded over, no rain yet though, top temp about 7c, Derek.

I haven't poked my nose out of the door since Sunday, have a bad chest and wish I could hibernate. Cold, wet with huge hale stones late morning. I hate the winter - bah humbug!

Now my wheelbarrow planter has blown over and all knocked out will now need to go retrieve all.

changeable. drizzling early on, then rained extremely hard with thunder and accompanied by strong winds, then lovely sunshine in the afternoon. the only constant was that it was cold throughout. I cleared the lawn of all leaves on sunday and it was looking good. the rain and wind have brought lots more leaves down, so back to square 1! AArggh!

not the best of days to attend a funeral.

At least we don't have any trees in the garden. Used to have about 30 sycamores plus numerous fruit trees and Autumn was a nightmare clearing leaves - I was a lot younger then.

Sunny here, but a cold wind. It was very windy during the night - it must have rained a lot, too, because there was a lot of water at the edges of the roads.

Wet, cold, breezy (60mph).

Chilly north westerly wind, gradually easing during the day. Wet in the late morning, but drier after lunch except for the odd, heavy shower.

This weather is brought to you from the town that used to have the Met Office.

Interesting subject, isn't it? I know some people laugh at the British preoccupation with the weather, but I for one find it endlessly fascinating!

Why was the Met Office moved from Bracknell, Andrew? Wasn't it one of the first establishments in the New Town?

They needed to expand, and land around here is so expensive, they decided it would be cheaper to relocate. The three options were Norwich, Warrington and Exeter, and Exeter offered them the best incentives because they wanted the extra jobs there.

Bracknell was designated a New Town in 1949, the first new houses were ready in 1951, and the Met Office was opened by the Queen in 1962.

As I'm now the History Officer for the Bracknell Forest Society, I'm finding out all sorts of facts about the town. What else would you like to know?

My goodness - that sounds important, Andrew! :-D)

Our weather is VILE. No snow or frost, but gales, hail and torrents of rain going horizontally. It was very chilly yesterday. Thank goodness for log burners!

Spritz - The Bracknell Forest Society is a small civic group, formed about six years ago. I changed the name of the role from History Rep to History Officer, as it sounded better when dealing with other people and organisations. As there was no job description, I've been defining my role as I go. Being a 'New Town', developed from a small one, I run into the statement "Bracknell's got no history" quite a lot - I'm trying to show otherwise. On the contrary, going from a settlement in Windsor Forest until 1813, to a New Town in 1949, Bracknell has a unique history.

Are you going to write a book Andrew, some folk have written about our village
Once the riot act was read here and an almost complete fossil of a pleiosaur from the chalk pits......it appears on the village sign and nicknamed 'the kipper'

All very interesting Andrew , keep up the good work , I love the history of places .
Imagine the Riot Act being read , Pam . I've forgotten what that was all about now . Wouldn't work these days would it ? (Thinking London 2011 )
Regards weather , troops , don't like to mention this , but it is November .

Thanks for that, Andrew! I asked the right person. I did Geography as one of my subjects at college (rather a long time ago) and the Met Office at Bracknell acquired great status in our minds. The previous year's students had been taken there on a visit and we were made to feel very under-privileged because we had missed it! A lot of the New Towns have very interesting history, because they were often based on a variety of smaller communities. We studied them as part of our course. They were seen as a great white hope then (mid-sixties).

Pam - I'm currently working on a WWI book, due out next autumn. The history of Bracknell had crossed my mind as a follow-up

Oooh, you might know how I can ID a photo of a mystery WW1 soldier I found amongst my Mum's photos! Would the Imperial War Museum be helpful if I sent them the photo, which we've scanned into the PC?

spritz - I've sent you a PM