13 posts tagged “snow”
...although that's not the pantomime Mouse and I went to last night. We went to Edinburgh to see Peter Pan at the Lyceum, just the two of us from here,and two of my brothers and their families/friends from Mama's house-full.
Handsome had been into Edinburgh during the day with some of our house-full, and said when he got back that the roads weren't bad apart from a stretch of about six hundred meters at the very highest point of the road where it was, and this is a quote, 'a bit of a white-out but ok if you keep going'. Obviously the snow plough (I may be exaggerating, it may only have been a gritter) and car both off-road had not found it 'ok'. By this point however, turning back was seriously not an option, largely because I couldn't see the road behind me, in front of me, or work out where the verges were apart from the bits with vehicle in, and I wasn't going there. And it was icy under-wheel as well. I hyperventilated my way through it.
But, Handsome was right, and it was a comparatively short, if exciting stretch, and once through we made good time to the restaurant, with only the minor inconvenience of the car park being shut to interfere. It was lovely to meet my middle brother's new partner and her son, and Cutesocks brought his Mama and Papa as well, although he left his little brother at home so that my Mama had something to do. (If you read this Mum, that's a joke, I promise). The restaurant is actually connected to the theatre, so we managed to eat until about two minutes until curtain-up. Always a good plan.
The pantomime was really good, although I shall never look at Tinkerbell in the same way again. In fact, I am never, ever going to be able to go and see Peter Pan again, because my standard for Tinkerbell is now a grown man in a tutu and flying helmet waving a fairy-light bedecked Barbie doll around while squeaking in a made-up language... There were other more normal bits; Mrs Darling was sad in a very unmelodramatic but rather heart-touching way; the Lost Boys were lovable and patched; the crocodile was cleverly done (Mouse was very impressed with how most of the time it was a kite - you had to have been there to understand) and the bed in the centre, which became the underground house and the lagoon and the pirate ship was a really impressive piece of stage management. I have to admit to particularly liking the way the cast occasionally quoted J. M. Barrie's original stage directions.
Cutesocks was absolutely desperate for pirates, and sat with saucer eyes watching the whole thing. I remember Mouse being like that the first time we took him, although he fell asleep after he'd had his ice-cream at the interval!
And then we came out, and as Mouse and I walked back to the car I thought 'Gosh, it's snowing in the city centre, we'd better go around the long way. And as we drove towards the outskirts of Edinburgh, and the snow got heavier and heavier and heavier, I got more and more tense. All the way from Sighthill to Livingstone the roads were white and the cars were occasional (but still there) and sometimes in the ditch. As we drove out of West Calder, suddenly there were no more cars and it was getting harder and harder to see the road. At the Breich crossroads I struggled to get the car round the left turn up the Forth road and then uphill - snow usually has more grip, but it's been so cold here that the ice underneath made it a somewhat more slippery than I am happy with, particularly on a completely empty road with no phone signal in the middle of no-where and in the middle of the night... Five miles later I was wishing the road had stayed empty, when a convoy of extrememly (fifteen to twenty miles an hour) slow four-wheel drive cars pulled out in front of me. We followed them all the way into Forth, I had to change down into third gear to avoid running into the back of them. Grrrrrrr. Mouse was amazing, he was encouraging and cheerful and positive, and didn't even tell me off when I swore at 4x4 drivers.
We finally got home at eleven, which makes it about the slowest journey home from Edinburgh I have ever made. I had so much adrenaline charging through me that I couldn't go to bed because I would have just lain there and twitched.
Anyway, as I am officially hiding from the vast preparations for New Year's Eve going on in the kitchen, I'd better stop now and go and do something useful - like load the dishwasher for the fourteenth time!
This morning we were well and truly snowed in. Not only did we have about eighteen inches of snow on the drive and therefore in front of the garage doors, but also two of our neighbours (that is about half a mile away) had been unable to get their cars further up the road and had asked if they could leave them on our drive and the local farmer had 'snowploughed' the road with his tractor, and piled snow over the front of all the drives. It was going to take about two hours just to get our car out onto the road.
So we phoned work and said we couldn't go. It was, apparently, shut anyway. In fact, West Lothian appears to have been shut today! What a shame, an extra day on the Christmas holidays...
The only thing is, I bought these killer heels for my Christmas party(s) and my life has been fated ever since. Firstly someone large broke one of my toes, which consigned me to walking boots for a while... then Handsome was unwell when we should have been at the school dance (I reckoned I could wear the killer heels when sitting down, and put pumps on for dancing purposes), and we should have been at our Christmas meal tonight and we're not. I think I'll have to wear them when I refill the bird tables tomorrow, at least they should raise me above the level of the snow.
We've had a lovely day today. The boys snowballed each other and us all the way into the village - we went down to get a newspaper and deliver a present to one of Mouse's friends. We had to walk on the road and climb knee-deep into the verge if anything came down the road, I was soaked by the time we got home, and boiling hot with all the clambering. Handsome took some amazing photos, and we walked the full circle so we felt as though we'd had some exercise. Then I wrapped presents all afternoon, and Handsome cleared the drive so that we can get out tomorrow.
I think I've finally got everything under control this weekend - the house is tidy, washing and ironing up-to-date, bread and oatcakes baked, some of the presents wrapped (enough so that the ones left will be Christmassy task rather than a chore). I've even managed to wrap Mouse's enormous whole-roll-of-wrapping-paper-it's-obvious-what-it-is-but-we're-pretending-it's-a-surprise present.
And we managed to get the tree defrosted enough to put it up and decorate it. It was a little more last minute than usual because we'd left it lying at the side of the garage, so it got thoroughly snowed upon, and as it was still tied up, there was ice all the way through it. Handsome left it standing in the garage all yesterday, and it had absolutely no effect, so this morning we brought it into the utility room and it dripped gently all day (onto newspaper).
Handsome went and collected Hairy (along with Hairy's godfather who has been visiting this weekend, along with his godmother) from Glasgow, and Mouse and myself decorated the tree - we have to exclude Hairy and Handsome because Hairy just throws everything at the tree because he has no taste, and Handsome thinks it's funny to make the tree tasteless. Mouse and myself have made it all red and gold and glittery. Godfather threaded baubles, and Casper chased things around the floor and reminded us about not hanging anything too close to the floor if it was breakable.
It's snowing again... it's looking good for a white Christmas.
It snowed overnight on Thursday, so everything was looking really pretty on Friday morning when I got up. I was just thinking to myself that it was a perfect day for sitting in the passenger seat of the car on the way to work, with my camera on my lap so that I could shout STOP at Handsome whenever there was a photographic opportunity, when I remembered that Handsome was not well and was planning on staying at home (because he'd coughed all night) and that I no longer have a working camera. I drowned it on the last very, very wet Duke of Edinburgh walk. I know it is drowned because a) water ran out of the battery case when I took it out of it's (supposedly not very waterproof) bag and b) all the photos I took on that particular walk are misted - it was only wet, not foggy too.
So I drove into work (very carefully as it was icy as well as snowy, and although I am quite capable of driving in the snow, I don't actually like it very much) and looked at the views as I went. They were really quite beautiful, and if Handsome had been there we would have probably been late for work because he would have had to stop so many times. But we could have always blamed it on the snow...
It remains very picturesque here - there were so many birds hanging off the garden feeders earlier today that they were knocking each other off, and our next-door-neighbour's doves (with big feathery feet) were pecking up the seed that the smaller birds knocked out. A symbiotic relationship that probably leads to big fat white doves! They sort of fade into the snow so that sometimes you can't quite work out how many are there.
And it's still snowing, gently and steadily.
I took Mouse for his swine flu jag this afternoon - finally - and I got mine done at the same time, even although I'm fairly convinced it's unnecessary for me. It certainly isn't unnecessary for Mouse, his peak flow is still way below what it should be, I'm convinced he's growing every time I turn my back which is why his peak flow's off, and Handsome's absolutely stuffed with the cold, so I'm also worried about Mouse picking that up and wheezing more.
I have to say that I'm feeling a little peeved, because I never, ever, ever react to jags - but my arm's really sore tonight, and I've got a diabolical headache starting. Mouse on the other hand, who is inclined to serious hypochondria, is leaping around happily with no signs of any bother.
That could just be excitement because it's snowing heavily. I'm reliably informed, via x-box live, that there's about four inches in Tarbrax (a place just on the borders of civilisation) which means that he stands a really good chance of no school bus in the morning. No school bus equals no school, because if they don't send a bus in the morning, they don't send one at night and he's stranded. Personally I think it's ridiculous that they turn the bus around just because it can't make the steep turn at Tarbrax, but there you go, that's how it is.
Eight sleeps 'til Christmas...
Handsome and myself should have been walking today, with our lovely group of Duke of Edinburgh sixteen-year-olds, down in the Border Hills. We left yesterday lunchtime, and they had an afternoon orienteering in a bit of forest (unsuccessfully, I might add, they failed quite spectacularly to find the right numbers) before walking across to a rather more posh than usual bunkhouse for the night.
Then they played charades. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest done syllable by syllable? Hilarious!
After putting the girls back to bed two or three times (the only reason we didn't have to put the boys back to bed was because the girls had locked them in...) they did eventually go to sleep. And then we woke up this morning to thickly falling snow. It hadn't been forecast. Although I would have no qualms whatsoever about walking my own boys in that much snow on the planned route, we cannot make that decision about other people's kids, so after breakfast, we told them that we would have to take them home.
We let them play in the snow for a while first though - we're not entirely heartless! By the time we left, there was a neat row of eight snowman standing outside the bunkhouse - and they'd used up all the leftover carrots from last night's dinner.
Mouse had a stupendously huge mega-grump this morning because not only had no more snow fallen, but there was actually considerably less than yesterday. His school bus made it in to school absolutely fine yesterday, despite snowy roads, and then he got to stay in school all day, whilst always hoping he'd be sent home any minute. It never happened (oh good), even although the snow kept falling.
And then last night the forecasts mentioned lots more snow overnight... all schools in Borders (the next-door region) closed... the wind started to rise... the sky clouded over... everything looked promising for a day of x-boxing - and then it was his bedtime.
And when he woke up this morning, it was obvious that he was going to school.
For once, he couldn't even blame me, although he had a damn good try. I may have super-powers, but I definitely cannot control the weather.
I love snow, it makes me happy... I like the cold too, as long as I'm allowed to wear warm boots and a fleece or two. It's all about cosiness, and being able to look out at it from the warmth. This works well only as long as my work place is of a reasonable temperature - today it was officially Baltic.
We've got more snow due tonight, I hope there's enough so that I can feel like an adventurous explorer going to work tomorrow!
Yesterday I made the mistake of thinking that it might do my stuffed up head some good to take it for a walk, it was a gorgeous sunny day, although the layer of snow on the ground as we approached the Pentlands should have been enough of a hint that the temperatures were a tad low...We walked from Harlaw to the summit of Black Hill, and it was too cold to breathe properly. Then we turned to come back down, and the wind was in our faces and icy. I can't say it did my cold any good at all, but it was therapeutic for my soul.
Today Mum took me shopping for my Christmas present - new walking boots. They're gorgeous, but she's taken them away to wrap up for Christmas morning, so I'll have to walk until December in the old ones with little sole left and a steady left-foot leak. I can live with it, in the knowledge that come the New Year I'll be walking in lovely new boots.
