Nice weather if you're a snowman

By Steven McKenzie Highlands and Islands reporter, BBC Scotland news website

The Market Brae Steps snowman is still standing

At the top of the Market Brae Steps in Inverness a snowman was built shortly after the first heavy snowfalls before Christmas Day.

A message written on a piece of cardboard beside it read: "Help! I have only days to live".

But almost three weeks later the snowman is still standing - headless and with a new message mentioning a Scottish soft drinks festive advert.

Snowmen and winter's icy grip are showing little signs of going soon.

The long spell of wintry conditions has been marked by tragedy with the loss of two climbers in an avalanche on Ben Nevis and the death of a third man in hospital after he was also caught in an avalanche on Liathach.

Fat flakes

Travel has been difficult.

The A9 was closed for nine hours by snow and jack-knifed lorries on 27 December, while a woman who left her remote home in Cape Wrath in the far north to buy a turkey two days before Christmas has still not made it home.

Flights from Inverness Airport have been disrupted in recent days and for safety reasons Inverness's outdoor Hogmanay party was cancelled.

With gritting crews giving priority to key routes, streets around the city have only occasionally been visited by a snow plough.

Sun sets over a wintry scene near Culduthel in Inverness

Rural communities have seen even fewer clearing operations.

Refuse collections have been missed because it has been too difficult for the lorries to get down roads.

On one street in Milton of Leys, residents rallied to clear a section of road outside their homes so cars could get through.

It has been a situation mirrored elsewhere as neighbours help dig and push each others' vehicles off the road and into drives.

The weight of snow that has accumulated since before Christmas has damaged property.

Hundreds of chickens being reared on a farm were killed at the weekend after snow caused the roof of a shed in Easter Ross to collapse.

Gutters along roofs have been broken and conservatories crushed by sliding snow.

But the winter has been a beauty as well as a beast.

Just after Christmas, diners leaving a pizza restaurant in an Inverness retail park stood in wonder as icy crystals fell like glitter.

And fat flakes bigger than 50p pieces have been a feature of snow flurries, coating garden snowmen.

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