On Wednesday, January 20, 2016 at 4:37:23 PM UTC, John Hall wrote:
In message ,
Richard Dixon writes
On Wednesday, 20 January 2016 07:57:45 UTC, Scott W wrote:
-5.7C the overnight low in Wanstead - edging yesterday's and making
it the coldest night here for three years

Given that 20th Jan is allegedly midwinter's day in England and Wales
(apparently it's 27th Jan in Scotland) then it seems fair for it to
start with the coldest morning of winter!

When I went to get my paper this morning at about 8am, the newsagent
said that it was -6C here in Cranleigh. I don't know how he knew, but it
certainly was a plausible figure, especially as Charlwood - 10 miles
east of here - recorded -6. It felt a good deal colder even than
yesterday morning's hard frost.

The milkman delivered my milk very early this morning. (I'm one of the
few who still have their milk delivered.) I brought it indoors at about
7:45. When I went to pour it into a jug at about 3:30pm, I had some
difficulty in doing so. I discovered that there was a small piece of
soft ice partly plugging the neck of the bottle, something I haven't
seen for many a long year. (My previous milkman used to deliver the milk
at about 11am, which may have been a factor in that, as may be the fact
that I recently switched from full fat to 1% fat milk.)
--
John Hall
"Honest criticism is hard to take,
particularly from a relative, a friend,
an acquaintance, or a stranger." Franklin P Jones

Our milk is delivered around 7am. It did occur to me that freezing of our skimmed milk would be a problem but it hasn't happened so far.
One thing I haven't seen for many a year is the top of milk pecked by blue tits. I don't know whether that is because few people order full fat milk any more?