A COUPLE who jetted off to Greece for a winter break got more than they bargained for after getting caught up in the country's worst snowstorms for more than 40 years.

Mrs Jean Lord, sub-postmistress of the post office and stores in Gisburn Road, Blackho, was due to fly home from Athens last weekend just as the bad weather struck.

But with her flight back to Britain cancelled, Mrs Lord, who is in Greece with her husband, had no choice but to enjoy an enforced extension to her break.

Thousands of villages in Greece, Turkey and Bulgaria have been cut off by snow blizzards which struck the region at the weekend.

In Greece the army has been called in to try to deal with the chaos caused by the weather, which saw the Parthenon dappled in snow.

The Greek capital saw 32cm of snow with up to 70cm in the outer suburbs. The snowfall lasted non-stop for 70 hours, the snowiest since 1962.

The bad weather, which has seen temperatures drop to below zero, is expected to last for the next few days, although a spokesman for the Met Office said the worst was over.

John Boswell, who was looking after the post office while Jean was on holiday, says the weather in Greece left her with no choice but to sit tight.

He added: "Jean was due to fly back on Saturday but, because of the weather, the drive to the airport, which should have taken 40 minutes, took more than two hours and then the flight was cancelled. Now she won't be able to get back until Friday.

"I feel really sorry for Jean. She went on a winter break looking for a bit of sun and to get away from the terrible weather we have been having here, but maybe she would have been better off staying put.

"She said she had never seen anything like it out there. There are grown men playing like children in the street with the snow because they've never seen it before.

"It seems like they are less geared up to cope with snow than we are in this country. At least we get bad weather most years, but I don't think they have had snow there for about 40 years or more."

The Blacko post office will stay closed until Friday when Mrs Lord, a former manager of the Marsden Building Society branch in Barrowford, is due to return.

Mr Boswell said allowances and pensions could be picked up from the post offices in Nelson, Gisburn or Barrowford.