UWAGA SOPLE!

Watch out for icicles! At this time of year, many buildings start growing icy stalactites from their gutters, which can be dangerous - in Warsaw there are several cases a year of death or serious injury when a large icicle falls on someone's head from a great height. Landlords have a duty to clear them or to rope off pavements beneath them.

The ones (above right) outside Eddie's bedroom window are not dangerous, as they'd plunge into soft snow on the garage roof .

In our family, icicles are called 'hitchoops'. When Moni was small, she was a great Thomas the Tank Engine fan. There's an episode when narrow-gauge engine Peter Sam has his funnel knocked off by a giant icicle hanging from a tunnel entrance. After the accident, the guard is holding the icicle, saying: "Here's what hit you, Peter Sam," which Moni misheard as "Here's your hitchoop, Peter Sam". For some while she thought that this is what icicles are indeed called. Below: an array of hitchoops growing from the roof of a house on Trombity with an unfinished upper floor. Once the guttering is done, such scenes will disappear.