| This morning, I was giving someone a lift before dawn. In the darkness the roads, cars and pavements were so frosted that it looked, under the car headlights, like a full covering of snow. Then at 8am, 45 minutes before sunrise, a glorious red sky was visible on the horizon. The cloud cover that kept us exceptionally mild over Christmas has given way to clear skies and beautiful sunny days (here is a video of people in central Belfast in ski resort like weather yesterday), replete with cold weather warnings. The first proper wintry weather since Labour came to power has put in the spotlight their decision to end some winter fuel payments. I'm struk by the Dublin-born chef Anna Haugh saying in this interview with Helen McGurk that she had never tasted veda bread before coming to Northern Ireland. We loved that loaf from childhood when my grandmother served it (replete with the joy of butter - mum gave us boring margarine at home). My American cousins considered veda bread a treat of being in NI! (just as, in reverse, I still consider the original cereal Cheerios, not available here - only inferior varieties - a US treat). Jackie McKeown, who has written powerfully about caring for her parents who had dementia (as did mum - we were lucky, she was happy with it and dad still had his memory), is scathing that Coronation Street is introducing a dementia plotline. I never watch soaps but in the 1980s loved Eastenders. The glimpses I catch now make me think they are far worse than then, and full of such ridiculous melodrama as to have lost plausibility. The decision to hold the pipe band championship in Scotland on July 12 is still causing shock in Northern Ireland. In opinion, here is Alf McCreary on tomorrow's Kingsmill anniversary (he grew up in Bessbrook, then reported on the IRA massacre) and this is my column on why I think immigration will remain a crisis. Enjoy your reading - and your weekend (it will be chilly but sunny in parts of NI this afternoon). Ben | 
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