Showing posts with label snow. Show all posts
Showing posts with label snow. Show all posts

Monday, 21 December 2009

We are...


...on the whole a resilient bunch. When you live in the middle of nowhere, you don't expect to see the gritter lorry pass your door, so you're not disappointed, you just get on with life. The local farmer gets his plough and digs a way through the top layer of snow, you go for walks, meeting neighbours, following tracks, until the sun is shining enough to venture into cars and travel.

We don't have anything as easy as snow chains, we just slide our way out.

Now the main road you do hope the grit lorry might have found that, but here...no, no such luck, so you slide your way, albeit a little faster, towards the lights of town.

New snow I can deal with, it's the ice and the promise of cold nights and bitter mornings that keeps me huddled in my village.






So I'm discovering delicious sounding paint colours for the rooms in our cottage, thinking of kitchens(we're moving it), the one we have at the moment is the only room that doesn't get any sun, so is naturally dark, with dark brown floor tiles, and dirty wooden units(and smells, however much I clean)...and warming myself on a reclaimed AGA sometime next year. It's going to the back of the house where the sun pours through windows and stained glass french doors...we're knocking a small sitting room through to a tiny utility room, to make one reasonably sized kitchen...having free standing furniture...reclaimed mostly...we've found a great shop in Dereham called Steptoes, who only sell second hand furniture...and pieces picked up as we go...

Then there's the outside to paint...and the sitting rooms...and the...oh, I've loved moving!

Friday, 18 December 2009

I should...

...have had a new electric meter installed today, alas he couldn't make it down our road...and this is why...


Our garden..


Our cottage



St Andrews and lane


St Andrews

A rather beautiful reason...though next week would've been nicer, and we would have had an "official" white Christmas...and as I type, the snow is falling again.

Saturday, 7 February 2009

A few days...

...away!

Monday came and so did the snow. Being booked to go away with my mother, I put everything in the car, including extra blankets, water, sandwiches and a shovel...I drive a mini. We set off. The longest part of the journey was my normal twenty minute journey to the local town, it took me an hour and a half. I stayed off the motorway (M25 north) and travelled via Hertford, Hatfield, St Albans to Hemel Hempstead, then headed south to the M25...which was clear and only had light traffic on it, along the M4 past Reading and Newbury...I had no problems, just driving carefully. The lanes near the hotel were a little dicy, but no different to those I have at home. As long as you are sensible, and don't do daft things, then you should be safe...unless an idiot comes at you!

Now
I have over a foot of snow all over the garden, and the lane I can see from here is a tad icy, but traffic is moving, just slowly and carefully.

(photo's of hotel to follow)

Tuesday, 13 January 2009

All last week...

...we had a haw frost over snow, and by Friday I'd decided to take my camera into the garden and snap away. Below are some of my efforts


Garden

Part of the garden

Winter Jasmine

Winter Jasmine

Holly

Holly

Choysia

Choisya (Mexican Orange Blossom)

Birds

Pheasants toes

Hidy Hole

Hiding Place

And then on Sunday looking out, this sunrise greeted me. (I just turn on my side and get this view)


Sunrise

So pretty I decided to pad downstairs and walk to the end of the front path for this...


Outside sunrise

No artificial lens' were used in the making of these photographs...I'm not that clever!

Tuesday, 6 January 2009

Snow...

...and ice!

I couldn't have been listening to the weather forecast very well on Sunday, because when I padded across the landing yesterday morning, and looked out the window, there stretched before me was a blanket of white, all crisp and even...and deep enough not to have a blade of grass peeping through. It's still here today, though not quite as deep and even, but still white...and still chill!

I babysat grandsons yesterday, as they had one of those school inset days.

To start, their central heating isn't working properly, and as the day was so cold, granny decided to take them to her house...but, she needed the local shop first, which is past her house, through two villages, and down a steep hill. Unfortunately they don't grit those roads, and have only just started to outside granny's house, as they've seen fit to give us a bus! But, travelling sensibly...at 6-8 mph, we made it...then came the long way home. November 2007, my land rover skidded on mud left on the road from harvesting beets, in the Fens, and I ended upside down in a ditch...that was after being careful, so now I'm ultra careful...and I had two grandsons in my car, so 6-8 mph...is fine with me! They enjoyed the ride, and sparkling snow...and the village shop. They also had fun watching the squirrel hanging upside down from the bird feeder, and the birds foraging away around the base.

In the afternoon we made the unanimous decision to go to the cinema...Madagascar-Escape 2 Africa...and if you haven't, then you have to see those apes! They give the penguins a run for their money! Granny then took them shopping...so now I'm the wearer of a snug pair of suede, sheepskin lined boot/slippers...oh, and so warm today!

So today is my first "normal" day after the holidays...now where did I put that teapot!