Long wait for first customers in St Peter's

ONE business waited nearly two hours for its first customer today, as a blanket of snow covered the upper parishes.

Lesbirel's Fruit, Veg and Flower stall at La Route de Plaisance, St Peter's opened as usual at 8am but by 9.45am the till was still empty.

Clary Lesbirel, 85, pictured, who has run the stall with son Peter, 48, for more than 20 years, said: 'We always open in the snow and we've done it when it's much worse than this.'

Peter was a little surprised at the lack of customers as he did not think the roads were too bad and he thought some people tended to panic when it snowed.

Mr Lesbirel senior said they supplied pre-packed salad to the Vale WI Every Friday but they had phoned to cancel it because of the weather.

'It just means that I've got another van load of stuff to sell here,' he said.

He said there seemed to be a fair amount of traffic on the road and was confident that the day's business would soon begin as the thaw seemed to have started.

'I'm here every day. I deliver all over the island, to the schools and to a lot of pubs. We're a bit lucky that I do a lot of deliveries on Thursdays which means that I don't have many today.'