European deep freeze serves up fun, frustrations and danger

A jetty at the Afsluitdijk, a dike separating the IJsselmeer inland sea and the Wadden Sea, in the Netherlands. PictureL: Peter Dejong/AP

The deep freeze gripping large parts of Europe is serving up both fun and frustrations, with heavy snow cutting power to thousands of homes in central Slovakia, while allowing some Dutch parents to pull their children to school on sledges instead of riding bicycles.

Britain experienced its coldest night for a quarter-of-a-century, with the temperature falling to minus 22.9C (minus 9.2F) in Braemar, northeast Scotland — the lowest recorded in the UK since 1995, according to the Met Office weather service.