A Snow Day

 

The view from Tam's bedroom, through a hastily-wiped window.  The wooden shutters certainly help keep the warm room but do nothing for condensation. This is the view roughly North-West.

This is looking towards the quarry, hidden behind the snow.

This is what it did all day yesterday, but fortunately didn't lie on the track and roads.  I normally love snow, but I was worried about getting my prescription an worried about Tam & Rosie managing to get here safely, although she said by the time she set off after lunch, the A44 through the mountains was fine.

Fresh Bread!

So, I am started on a 3 day course of Selexid, and let's hope this helps whilst I am waiting to receive the infection-appropriate course I should be on.  

Nothing exciting is happening - I just have to rest up and hopefully soon feel better.  

I managed to "rug up" the roses in planters yesterday, using the last of the compost here, so they had a good layer of mulch over their roots.  Tess of the D'Urbervilles has only just recovered to grow a couple more stems after being hit so hard by a very hard frost last year.  

Tam is proposing a walk after breakfast, "before it all melts" so we will do that.  Keep warm.

A Rotten Swizz!

Good afternoon all.  I am writing this having a sofa day, with the central heating on, the log burner lit and a cup of hot Earl Grey.  For followers from the UK I don't need to say how ghastly the weather is.  I have one daughter snowed in at Cardiff (Centre of the Red Alert area yesterday) - she had to stay over with a friend last night and from the sound of things this morning, will probably be there again tonight and maybe Saturday too if we get the freezing rain they are threatening (which will turn the roads to solid ice).  T'Other daughter is working from home up in Yorkshire, as they have had a lot of snow too.  Our "Lucky" son can walk to and from work so just gets cold.

The forecast has been dire - the Beast from the East was going to meet Storm Emma, bringing blizzards our way.  Most of the country was under a yellow or amber alert (with red highlights in areas, poor souls).  We did a small, non-panic shop on Monday and got anything we might get low on.  Cat food, milk, fresh fruit and veg, and more birdseed.  We only went as far as the bird feeders (to top them up) yesterday and bring wood in, and sat tight in the sitting room listening to the wind trying to break the windows.  We went to bed fully expecting to wake up to 10 foot of snow.  (I don't really MEAN 10 feet of snow - it is a family expression, but we were expecting 8" or so).  When I woke at 4 a.m. for the loo, I twitched the bedroom curtains, but there was just the lightest frosting of snow across the paddock.  The wind, however, screamed around the house all night long, and we kept being woken by it - and the rather worrying noise of metal sheeting being yanked by the storm.  We were both hoping it wasn't the Back Place roof . . .

When we came down this morning our roof was still there - but Next Door's straw barn was missing 10 panels of wriggly tin - which had been whisked away to the bottom of the hill and which had been deposited down by the river.  They were just returning home in the bucket of the JCB when Keith looked out of the window. 

Anyway, I am rather peeved to have all the coldness and unpleasantness (and that bully beast of a gale-force wind) without the prettiness of a good fall of snow.  It's a rotten swizz!!!  The ponds are frozen solid and the poor wild birds are desperate so we are out topping up feeders several times a day.  As there is meant to be freezing rain on the way (which would turn our steep hill into the Cresta Run and render it impassable) we thought we would venture into town today and do the shopping for the week.  We went and bought some cheap apples at Abergwili too (just for the Blackbirds - there were 16 out there this morning, desperate for food).  Then on to Charlies where we bought another sack of seed - but just a cheap one for the ground feeding birds, which include the Blackbirds. 

As I write this the strong gusts of wind are tearing into the flowering bush just outside the window and breaking off leaves and twigs, making it thrash as it if is in torment.  It was putting out flowers - I think they have thought better of it now!

So, no snow pictures (and my external hard drive is upstairs so I will have to add snow pictures later).  I hope all my UK followers are safe and warm and haven't been trapped in the blocked roads about the country (M62 near Rochdale and A31 in the New Forest ) today.  We hardly ever used to get snow when I lived in Hampshire and it is unheard of for the Army being called out to rescue people.  Even a train has broken down near Christchurch and the occupants spent a most unpleasant night trapped on it with no heating or lighting.  I think we have escaped lightly here.

More of the white stuff . . .

Looking out across the paddock:



And it came to pass . . . the prediction of more (and heavier) snow. We woke up to 7" or 8" this morning. Next Door's Landy can just make it down the hill so long as sideways is a permitted movement. OH fell over twice going down the hill, and myself once when we walked up to the junction to check the Llanfynydd road. I then fell over coming UP the hill and slid 6 feet on my undercarriage, feeling such a prat! J set off walking to the A40 to catch the bus which he hoped was still running (we kept checking). Amazingly he got a lift right into town (someone who had invested in snow chains). He has also lined up a bed for the night with a work colleague if it snows like the bejeebers again this afternoon and he gets stuck . . .

This is the heaviest fall of snow we have had in one lot. We don't often get snow before mid-March, and then it is an inch or so which melts within a couple of days and doesn't cause many problems. Of course, compared with the rest of the world, this amount of snow is nothing, but because we get it so rarely, people are always unprepared. Snow chains would be a good idea, but prices vary from £50 or so up to £140 - not an amount of money we have sitting doing nothing at present . . .

My husband is just digging our car out, just in case we are able to get out in the not too distant future, but he's spitting into the wind as it's just started snowing a bit again and more is predicted. We have the logistics of trying to get three of the into work tomorrow AND Sunday - in fact, right up to Christmas Eve. Then starting again on Boxing Day . . . Somehow I think a White Christmas is definitely on the cards this year.

Walking back up the hill towards our house.


Upstream along the river.

Across to the mynydd t'other side of the valley.

Crossing the bridge.

The lane down by the river.

Down by the mill.

A scene I'm sure every regular visitor to the blog is familiar with by now.

This is the more major lane where our little lane joins it.

Heading towards the A40.

Ducks with cold feet and bottoms . . .

Looking across the lane.

November Snow

It really is no joke having snow this early in a winter - well, still officially Autumn I suppose, until 1st December. The temperatures have been perishing too - at least minus 11 a couple of nights ago and quite possibly colder since. It began snowing on Friday morning, just as we were driving our son into town for work. In no time at all we were in the thick of a blizzard, and it carried on, unrelenting, whilst we dashed around Tesco's, stocking up on anything we thought we might get short on - though we do carry a good storecupboard.

It really DOESN'T take much snow to cause total upheaval here. On Friday for instance, it took us HALF AN HOUR just to get out of the Tesco car park. In fact, it took ten minutes to actually join the queue to GET out as for once we were parked where we would have to reverse out. It took us, in all, an hour and a half to get home as town was gridlocked. Crazy. Even then we had to abandon the car at the bottom of our hill as we couldn't get up it.

The side roads still aren't good - frozen compacted snow for long stretches where the winter sun never gets. Passable if you drive very carefully. Normally we would just shut the front gate and wait it out, but now we have to try and get our offspring into work. I sat up until 1 a.m. on Saturday morning waititng for our middle daughter to get home safely from her pub job. Our son is supposed to be going on a course in Bristol tomorrow and has to be in town for SIX A.M. to meet the chap who he's going with and will be driving them there and back . . . As there is supposed to be more snow tonight, that may not be possible . . .

As for how cold this house is, well, suffice it to say that unless you're by the wood burner, outside clothes are necessary (hat included) and life is rather miserable. The kitchen was 9 degrees Celcius this morning and the cats looked very disgruntled . . . We kidnapped the kittens last night and they spent the night in the shower room, and were SO happy to be in the relative warm (it has been at least minus 11 and below the last few nights). They were purring like grampusses . . .

Now we have a section of pipe frozen, which is causing problems, so my poor husband has to go and dig it up. It's a fresh junction he put in this year, so we are going to use the poorest fleece I was given for spinning this year (I had 6 in all) and use that in a bin liner to try and insulate the pipes.

The birds are desperate for food, and I am glad we got a sack each of seed and peanuts in just a few days before. Someone was writing somewhere about NOT feeding the birds as it encouraged rats, made them a target for cats and sparrowhawks, spread e-Coli and stopped the birds being good at foraging. I am sorry, but if we hadn't fed the birds last winter dozens would have died - I used to come down to up to 26 blackbirds each morning, plus countless Blue- and Great Tits, Chaffinches, Sparrows, Robins, Wrens et al.

I used to love the snow, but the last couple of winters have shown how difficult it makes life and right now, I would be happy to return to warmer and wetter winters . . .

Still snowed in . . .

Were it not for our hill, we might be able to just get out, but it's horrendous on the bend in the middle, where one side is frozen stream and the other frozen compressed snow. Unfortunately, we are going to have to get out with Honey to the vet's tomorrow as she has a very sore eye and it's only very slightly improved on yesterday . . . I don't want it getting worse, though my husband reckons I'm panicking (but I'm not). Time to "phone a friend" I think - one with a 4x4.

Snowed in!

Snow photo taken yesterday night.


To be honest, we were snowed in after the first flurry around teatime yesterday, as without any grit in the bin at the top of our hill, trying to get out would have been difficult even then - as return UP the hill would be impossible. Think Cresta Run here . . . In the event, we have had about 3 inches of snow and whilst it is very beautiful, I am a little worried that this is going to go on for a week or more and then we will have to try and walk to the nearest shop for fresh fruit/veg and cat biccies (about a 7 mile round trip). Still, have walking boots and rucksack, will travel . . . Mind you, plenty of neighbours have 4x4s so will doubtless give us a lift if they're going to town. All the time we had our 4x4 we never had to use it in anger, then we sold it and have had two snowy/icy winters on the trot!

As I walked up the hill this morning, the sun was struggling to break through the clouds.


View across the fields with the mist lifting a little.

Our copse with a glimmer of sun through the trees.



Down by the river, looking upstream (especially for Yarrow, whose favourite spot this is). The slate slabs along the riverside looked like they had been dredged with icing-sugar.

Down by the river, looking downstream.


View across our paddock from the half landing window.

Morning's Minion is probably reading this and thinking, for heaven's sake, that's just a wee bit of snow to be making all that fuss about! Ah, but we have it so rarely, so we are never prepared and the Council goes to stick its head in a sack and pretends it won't happen, as then they can save money by not gritting in advance . . .