Editor's Pick of the Week: Farmers, phantom snow, Rachel Daly and Harrogate's Coach and Horses

This article is free-to-read. We publish about 20 articles every weekend. To see all of them, and unlock all our content, costs only around 14 pence a day. Please subscribe. You can do so here. 

Snow days invariably lead to a spike in readers on the Stray Ferret, so with the Met Office predicting an overnight dollop, and one school announcing its closure, I was up at 5.30am on Tuesday eager to start a weather blog only to find… nothing.

At least I found a local farmer to talk to. Richard Tesseyman was part of a coach load from the Knaresborough and Boroughbridge area travelling to London for the inheritance tax demonstration. Some had stayed up all night to join the phantom snow-clearing exercise.

The snow may not have arrived this week, but it felt like Christmas did. Lights, trees and decorations aplenty went up.

The Coach and Horses in Harrogate reprised last year’s festive stunt by temporarily rebranding as the Sleigh and Reindeers. An office pedant pointed out the standard plural of ‘reindeer’ is ‘reindeer’ but it’s probably best not to mention this to the bar staff if you don’t want a pint of beer over your head.

Click here to gift someone a Stray Ferret subscription today.

This week saw something else go up — a statue of Harry Kane. Kane finished 19th in the male Ballon d’Or last year; Harrogate’s Rachel Daly finished 10th in the female Ballon d’Or. The bronze statue was commissioned by Waltham Forest Council. By contrast, North Yorkshire Council’s mainly-male ruling executive is moving at a glacial pace to recognise Daly.

A year has passed since a committee recommended the council develops a civic honours-type scheme that recognises the Women’s European Championships winner and World Cup finalist following a campaign by her former club Killinghall Nomads, supported by the Stray Ferret. So this week we chased up the issue.

Council leader Carl Les said moves were “underway” and it would be discussed before the end of the year. It felt as though he was stifling a yawn. Sometimes it seems like England’s men team will win a trophy before the council recognises the most successful sports star Harrogate has ever produced. Yet doing so would be one of the most popular things it ever did in Harrogate.