This was the week of the Big Freeze. Like everyone else, I was stuck at home on Monday with no buses and trains running. Well, not quite everyone. One intrepid Lib Dem councillor battled in via DLR and riverboat service, only to be sent home when he arrived at a deserted workplace.

Like most people, managed to get in on Tuesday via quite a pleasant 225 bus journey to Canada Water and a horrendously packed Jubilee line to Westminster.

Of course, we now have the inquest. The 'one drop of snow and London grinds to a halt' debate. I have to say that I have some sympathy with Boris and all the London Borough apologists. Snow like this happens so rarely in London that it probably isn't worth investing on a Canadian scale in snow ploughs n stuff. We can though ask that people do their best with the equipment available to them and my impression (others may have contrary experiences) is that they did. It was of course irritating that no attempt was made by Lewisham Council to unblock side roads (except perhaps for particular key sites) and it is odd that some pavements were cleared, and some were not, even on the same street.

Anyway, on Tuesday evening I went to the meeting of the Ladywell Society, mainly because I was interested in hearing their discussion on the plans for the redevelopment of the Lewisham Bridge school site. And on Wednesday, to the Lewisham Central Safer Neighbourhoods panel. (Before I forget, they're desperately looking for a local resident from the Lewisham Park area to take part in the panel, which meets monthly, so please let me know if anyone there wants to help police with their enquiries). Apparently, there's a massive spate of burglaries on Hither Green Lane, and I swear all eyes turned to me. Afterwards, had to walk home in the slippery sloppery ice cos all the buses had stopped due to an accident at the junction of Courthill Road and Lewisham High Street. Had to warn people waiting at bus stops to desist, because TfL certainly didn't bother telling them.

"Lewisham Council has launched a new scheme to inform people in the borough what to do in the event of an emergency.

‘Warn and Inform’ is an early warning system that allows the Council to communicate with residents, community groups and businesses via a secure messaging service.

If a major incident like a flood or a serious gas leak occurs somewhere in the borough, the Council can now send emergency recorded messages, SMS texts or emails to those residents, schools, businesses and voluntary groups who have registered with the scheme. It will tell them not just about what is happening but what alternative arrangements have been made and what precautions can be taken.

Duwayne and Jenni's election means that we've also brought some much-needed additional diversity to the Liberal Democrat Council group in Lewisham; the number of female councillors goes up from two to three and added another black councillor to the group. They're also young and enthusiastic. Which is probably a good thing.

Jenni's election might, hopefully, end the absurdity of the Council's Women's Health Inequalities Group having a majority of male councillors. including me. Not that you would know it, as the male Labour councillors don't usually bother to attend. I personally find it very interesting. At Wednesday's meeting, we focussed on health issues facing older women. Basically, although women to live longer than men, the gap in Lewisham is not as great as elsewhere, and I don't think we yet know why. It was also instructive to see the graph showing variations in life expectancy for men and women broken down ward. Rather worrying that Lewisham Central, where I live, has the lowest life expectancy for males in Lewisham. It also has the second lowest life expectancy for women. There's a broad correlation between low life expectancy and economic deprivation, but looking at the graphs it clearly wasn't the whole story, as for example Lewisham Central is not the most deprived ward in Lewisham. It actually looked as though access to green spaces and air quality is a key factor. Which makes me feel justified in continuing to raise the poor air quality in Lewisham town centre as a major public health issue, and not to follow the kind and helpful advice of a Labour councillor to solve it by not breathing.

Must do better.

On Tuesday, attended the just about quorate meeting of the Healthier Communities Select Committee. I didn't expect it to be particularly controversial, but an innocuous-seeming paper from the Primary Care Trust on commissioning was revealed in discussion to presage a major re-organisation, with options for the PCT including vertical mergers, horizontal mergers (ie with PCTs in other boroughs), conversion into a social enterprise: anything other than the status quo. Whatever happened to the old motto "if it is not necessary that it should changed, it is necessary that it should not be changed." There's nothing like yet another re-organisation of health care to turn the most radical member of the committee (not a position for which I am competing) into a dyed-in-the wool conservative!

On Thursday evening, chaired the Co-ordinating Committee preparing for the Lewisham Central Ward Assembly, which will be meeting on Tuesday 3 March at 7pm at the Methodist Church Hall in Albion Way. Quite an important meeting as it will begin to decide how to spend £50,000 of the so-called Mayor's Fund. Unless he's dipping into his own pocket, it really ought to be called something like "Our Fund", as we're paying for it, but be that as it may, it's quite important to get ideas for ensuring it's spent properly. The other thing we'll be doing on Tuesday is choosing a new co-ordinating committee, so yet another good reason to come along. Otherwise we'll choose you in absentia.

On Friday evening to the Methodist church hall, to the Lewisham Local History Society for a talk about Herbert Morrison and the South Lewisham Labour Party. Turned out to be more about the latter than the former, but it was fascinating to see how massive Labour Party membership was in Morrison's day: wards like Downham had more Labour party members in the early 1950s than Labour Party voters nowadays. How the mighty have fallen! Might be a bit painful for modern day Labour councillors, which may be why none of them turned up. Or did Labour history only begin in 1997?

Good to see Tory Cllr Anderson in the audience and hope he wasn't too embarrassed by the question "Did having an air raid shelter named after him help Morrison's political career?"

Alas, didn't get a printable response to my question about how Herbert Morrison would have rated Peter Mandelson as a politician.