Oh for the blissful cold and lovely Manor House.

Oh for the blissful cold and lovely Manor House.

So here we are on the final day of the first month of January and most of us are probably settling in for the January freeze. Yes folks, it's cold out there although perhaps not quite as cold as it was last year. Last year it was perishingly cold, excruciatingly cold, shiveringly cold and at times too much to bear by anybody's standards. Yours truly went down with the most horrendously violent, hacking cough that was so draining and debilitating at times that there were times when you were just tempted to go back to bed. You simply wanted to go to sleep for three or four months and not emerge from hibernation until the first cuckoos and crocuses of spring.

But winter is still with us and the weather forecast is distinctly ominous so much so that even the Manor House birds have gone all quiet. During the summer you normally see them in full and majestic flight, swaying and swooping together in balletic formation, rather like some ritualistic dance, sweeping across the houses, roofs and chimneys which act as some kind of theatrical set.

Now though the circumstances are markedly different. The temperature has dropped rapidly, the snow, or so they tell us, is on its way and around Britain, millions of us will be digging out our cheerily familiar coats, thick fur coats, a hundred layers of jumpers and pullovers, scarves tightly wrapped our necks and then we'll look forward to either excitement or worried, panicky trepidation in case we go flying head over heels on the snow and ice. It is a prospect some of us will either dread or just accept with a quiet resignation.

Last year it seemed to snow for ever, that long, awkwardly and seemingly indefinite period of torrential snow that just seemed to keep falling and falling out of the sky, dropping limply onto the ground before being replaced by yet another white carpet whose nerve shredding intensity did get to you after a while. There was no let up in Manor House last year from the end of January and by the beginning of March a sense of weary battle fatigue had set in. Some of us felt trapped and marooned, fearing that the snow would just continue for the rest of the year.

Thankfully though it did stop but not before the Beast from the East had announced itself with an unsettling ferocity. Here in Britain we are now used to the meteorological ups and downs of the weather. Even so the Beast from the East did catch us unawares. Bitter winds, sleet, snow and rain all conspired to demoralise us when we might have thought we'd seen the back of it all. Thankfully, it did pass and what followed in complete contrast was the most stunning, balmy and beautifully warm summer for many a year.

Still, here we are on the verge of February and such are the fluctuating uncertainties of the British climate that a vast majority of us haven't a clue what to expect. Do we just try to second guess the snow or do we hope against hope that the mild weather most of us have been experiencing recently will just return and stick around for the duration of the winter solstice?

Meanwhile, here in Manor House the builders and labourers are still hammering, chopping, drilling, tightening up and strengthening the foundations of vast blocks of new apartments, new commercial developments that simply take the breath away. This is the Woodberry Down regeneration, a radical housing transformation that could yet take several centuries to finish.

Everywhere you look there are impossibly tall cranes, huge mechanical monstrosities that look as if they belong on some futuristic science fiction movie set. They soar into the air and then just remain there for what seems like an eternity. Every so often you'll hear a grinding, creaking sound that leads you to believe that those poor old machines are in permanent pain. So you sympathise for a moment before realising that at times your patience may be at  breaking point. Then you laugh at your own bemusement and just pretend that it isn't really happening.

Sooner or later though, you suspect that the snows, snow drifts, gritters and children chucking snowballs will follow in that sequence but it's hard to tell when. Rest assured though, those hardy labourers will just carry on regardless, whistling merrily, laughing at each other blithely with the rudest jokes and just getting on with the job in hand. It is one of the most incredible sights you're ever likely to see.

In the far distance you can still see the Wigwam, a children's playground structure that at first baffled me and then the Berkeley building partnership hoardings which stretch as far as the eye can see. The hoardings sing the praises of the lovely walking paths in the Woodberry Wetlands, the heavenly tranquillity of this now very rural setting, the abundant birdlife and the hordes of butterfly spotting parties who gather together regularly if the summer sunshine peeks its head out of the clouds.

Everything is changing and evolving with almost ridiculous speed and you find yourself wondering if they'll ever finish what they've already started. There is though, a widespread acceptance of the onward march of time, a sense that none of us should ever stand in the way of progress because this is the way it's going to be. Around us is a feeling of 21st century modernity, 21st century architecture, 21st century science and 21st century art. Everything and everywhere is moving forward rapidly and startlingly.

New families are moving into those blocks of flats and the landscape has undergone a dramatic sea change. Suddenly there is a realisation that we must embrace the new age because if we don't we may be left behind. The technology has arrived with a vengeance and the time has come to forget about England's once idyllic age when the Industrial Revolution was alive with belching chimneys, noisy factories and a thriving productivity.

In  a sense those far off days of the past have never gone away because now Britain now founds itself on the brink of some global, financially lucrative, high tech breakthrough where Europe may become a thing of the past. Britain will tell us that we don't need our European neighbours for the one and simple reason that they just keep telling us what to do and that's the wrong kind of mood music. Europe, we may tell ourselves, is surplus to requirements and that's final.

Anyway, here we are poised for another Ice Age and the snow that was promised on Monday looks as if might materialise. Of course there is a natural beauty about the white stuff and besides the kids love it and always will. So it is that we'll all turn on the heating to full blast, huddle together for warmth, slap our arms together and wait for the right moment to go out when the snow either stops or starts depending on your point of view. Winter has taken up its familiar residence once again and it may be with us for who knows how long. Now where there's that 2,000 piece jigsaw piece puzzle? Anybody for Scrabble? It's probably at the back of the cupboard somewhere.