Fire and Flood

We got off rather lightly in the so-called 'big freeze'. Although we had a good couple of inches of snow at the beginning of January (and it's stuck around pretty much ever since) we missed the worst of it. And we'd got ourselves a bag of 'grit' before the stocks ran out so we could get up and down our path / drive.

The new porch (pictured) which I never really got around to blogging about - something we had done, in addition to the roofline, guttering and some double-glazing back in September / October - has helped insulate us from the cold. In due course it will hopefully be a nice place to sit, but at present it's providing a good place for stock-piling some handy wood for the stove during the cold snap.

While awaiting Sunday's snow - which never really arrived with us, although some of the surrounding villages have been badly hit - we decided it would be a good idea to give the stove's chimney a mid-Winter sweeping. All went very smoothly this time - on the previous sweeping, back in October, we managed to dislodge the chimney cowl! So we hopefully have nothing to fear in the way of chimney fires for the rest of the winter.

Still awaiting the snow - the following day - when our neighbour called round to say they could hear running water coming from the back of our house. It wasn't so much a 'flood' as a 'fountain' as it turns out. We thought the pipe to the outside tap had burst to start with, but luckily the tap had just popped off the top, so didn't take too much replacing. Hopefully that's the last water-related drama for some time to come . . .

December's Weather

December was a distinct improvement on November on the weather front - it finally got a bit colder, and we had that nice snowy Saturday just before Christmas (shades of things to come):

Blwyddyn Newydd Dda!

2010 - Make it a Good One!

Christmas Cake and Catastrophe!

Well another Christmas has come and gone . . .

This year's cake came out well - decoration courtesy of two snowflake cutters and those little silver sugar balls that break your teeth. Tried out frangipane mince pies as well - a bit different from the traditional variety, and very nice too.

All that food (and drink!) serves as a fitting precursor of course to the annual New Year's resolution to lose weight and eat more healthily . . .

The rest of Christmas followed the traditional pattern - meeting up with family, presents under the tree, the occasional bit of TV gold among the Christmas dross. Most of the Christmas food has been eaten or given away now (just a quarter of the cake left), although still enjoying the chocolate, particularly the 'volcanic' chocolate orange (think chocolate with 'space dust' - I quite liked it anyway!).

Then came Boxing Day and our very own minor catastrophe, courtesy of the fish tank, which managed to empty itself (bar a couple of inches or so, which preserved the fish) onto the carpet. Cue a morning of mopping up - it's drying out now, but the dehumidifier is still running, and the room is still in relative chaos:

So that's it for another year - hopefully next year's effort will be a little less wet!

White (Week Before) Christmas!

Picture the scene, it's a Saturday morning, the day stretches ahead, lots of Christmas preparation things to do, a bare few flakes of snow drift down . . . half an hour later . . .

We did make it to the top of the road, but cancelled plans to go further, got some essentials from the nearest shop, and just made it home while the road was passable. By early afternoon it had stopped snowing and it was time to take advantage of the resulting photo opportunities:

The sun even came out for a few minutes . . .

It didn't really last the night, but who knows there may be more to come yet . . .

Somewhere Under the Rainbow . . .

. . . it's still raining. Nice rainbow though!

Could have been Worse!

Well November's weather (see below) was what might be conservatively referred to as 'wet and windy'. Thus far the effects haven't been quite as bad as the end of October last year, although the garden was approaching saturation point by the end of last week.

Compared with my former stomping ground in the Lake District we appear to have got off very lightly though. The effect on the towns and villages of the North Lakes (some of which I know very well having lived in the Buttermere, Cockermouth and Keswick areas during the early-mid 1990s) has been really devastating.

Here in Wales it's now feeling distinctly cooler (there was actually a frost this morning) - and the last couple of days have been dryish with a brisk breeze, so the garden is gradually becoming a little less sodden. Here's hoping for more dry weather to come, and a few sunny days wouldn't come amiss!

Stop Press: Met Office declares November 2009 as the wettest month on record!