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Eleanor and Alistair Wilkins build a "snowman" after a hail storm earlier this week

WE KNOW the weather's been weird this summer but this week winter looked like it had actually arrived in Old Basing.

The season took its strangest turn yet locally on Monday when residents looked out of their windows to see a hail storm - and the ground was coated in icy hailstones.

Even though it wasn't the real white stuff, Eleanor Wilkins, seven, and her four-year-old brother Alistair still managed to build a snowman - or should that be hailman - at their grandmother Barbara Thornhill's house in Riverside Close.

Mrs Thornhill said: "The children had been playing in the back garden earlier in the day and it was nice and warm.

"Then it was just unreal. The sky came over really black and the hailstones were so big and heavy.

"We watched the storm from the house and it covered all of the cars and lawns. It was weird as it seemed like the middle of winter."

She added: "The children thought it was marvellous and as soon as it stopped they wanted to go outside and build a snowman from the ice."

However, Mrs Thornhill was not too happy about the sudden change in weather herself, as the icy hail killed her plants.

"It was just unreal," she said. "It must have gone on for about 20 minutes and all of my flowerpots that are on the patio filled up with two or three inches of ice."

2:24pm Friday 13th July 2007

This picture was submitted by Tony Tuck and shows the view from his house in Old Basing during the hail storm

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