Present from Russia!!!

Back of Copse Edge 02/02/

Last night when we went to bed the snow started to fall, we had been warned of the dire weather coming, and boy did it come. This morning we woke to a white world, everything covered the at least 2 ft of snow, and it was still snowing heavily. John got up at 6.19 and started dressing. He was going out to clear the drive. Of course then it was panic stations as he couldn't find his wellies. Well considering he hadn't worn them in a couple of years, they weren't where they should have been. For one horrible moment I thought I might have thrown them out, but then remembered where they were. Thanks to the ginkho biloba I take every day. It was stunning and beautiful, so silent and so white; and not at all cold.

by the side door, this is what we saw!
The Jellies at first didn't care for this at all and refused to go out so we all had breakfast and got on with our chores; John to feed the birds; who soon cottoned on they must have been hungry and me to my work room which was in a most terrible mess. On Saturday I had a plumber (Darren) come to desludge my radiators in flat 1. For several days during the last weeks the boiler had conked out so that I had to have the British Gas engineers around several times. They are very good and come almost immediately, but to no avail: neither of them could find what was wrong, they said they had checked everything and couldn't find a single fault. But every now and then all the radiators would be stone cold, and then just before the engineer came all would be working again. It was lucky though that the desludging took place as we have now located the problem, the Darren found out that the pump needs an auto air vent fitted to the pump. This at the end of the day after nearly 6 hours of work. He and I decided however to have the heating on all the time at a lower temp. and now we are ever so warm and cosy. But at soon as the pump does it again, out will British Gas have to come and I will tell them what to do. But to cut a long story short I had to take remove all the items around and near the radiators so that Darren and his mate could get at them; and boy was my work room a mess; stuff everywhere, I could hardly move. I was that tired so that yesterday I didn't go there at all, but this morning I had to come in and sort it out. With much pain I managed it, but the up side is that I found a lot of lost things or items I had forgotten about, plus was able to get rid of even more.

By twelve I felt that we, the Jellies and I (John thought a walk was a no-no) but we didn't; so booted and wearing a warm coat I opened the front door, and Jed and Nellie took off down the drive and out on the silent and quiet street. They LOVED it, gamboled about biting the snow, chasing each other. It was hard to control them so I turned back to the garden where they could have really fun. It was difficult to get up and down the steps since these were invisible, but by carefully feeling them I managed it.

The Jellies loving every minute of it!

Birdbath with snow

Gate into Charterhouse woods. This is what it is like everywhere. So here you have it, the first real snowfall as thick as this for 18 years. No wonder the berries had been so thick and so many this autumn.