Hmmmm

My mind is a total blank.

Today has been very busy - too busy for comfort really, I prefer to be a bit less rushed when I work. Oh well.

The snow has more or less gone now, although a bit more tried to fall today it just melted as it landed. Is this the end of our white winter? I wonder.

I think Custard my dog will be sad to see the snow go. He loves it - running, sniffing, rolling. He even just lays on ice patches, with his belly on the ice. Makes me cringe, but it doesn't seem to bother him at all!

We have been watching Celebrity Big Brother! A reality show where they throw all sorts of odd people into a house to see what happens. Interesting people this time, including Vinny Jones (actor and footballer), Ivana Trump and Stephen Baldwin. I hadn't realised that Stephen Baldwin was now a preacher. After the shock (I always think of him as the guy in the fairly bad disaster movies) I think I quite like him. He is very "in your face" when talking about God, which makes some of the others uncomfortable. Some try to make "clever" remarks and score points off him, but he knows what they are doing and won't let them do it.

Hm, my mind has gone blank again. I think the cold has sucked the life from my brain. A shot of Drambuie will help when I get home. I drink it for medicinal purposes only, of course. Hah, that was something that one of my grandfathers used to say. He was Plymouth Brethren, no alcohol allowed but he always had a bottle or 3 of brandy around his house for "medicinal purposes". He hated drinking it, of course, but a man has to just suck it up and do things sometimes. I miss him. He was such a great guy. Some of you may remember me telling the story from his childhood when he was playing with a rat in the garden... I can still hear him laughing about that!

OK, that is it, I have wanted enough of your time with this drivel!

Bye!

Snow photos

The snow this year has been the heaviest that I can remember since I was a child, when we used to get a few inches of snow for a few days most years. Heavy snow in my part of England has become so rare that a couple of years ago the head of the local school (ages 4-11) made all of the kids go out and build snowmen. He felt that as snow was so rare these days the experience of building snowmen was much more important than anything that might happen in the classroom!

These pics were taken last Friday...

The snow fell with a strong northerly wind...

The roads were dreadful...

This path was beautiful...


One last look back at Home. The tree is the one that I carried home the day after we got married...

More bushes...

The bridge that leads out of town...

Monday morning...

feel so cold!

It is cold outside, but it is also cold in my office! I am talking REALLY cold. Got my coat on,thinking about adding the fluffy hat too!

Anyway, the snow is going now - at the worst we had around 10 inches on out garden table, but the fall that was expected on Saturday night/Sunday morning failed to arrive and it all started to melt.

The weekend was good, although tiring, involving a lot of walking to and fro - feeding my mom's pony, Humphrey,walking the dogs (who loved every minute of it), popping to the shops, building a giant snowman, etc. I forgot to bring in my camera so photos will have to wait today, sorry.

Changing the subject, I loved the reactions to my announcement that we have a new laptop with a good internet connection! No slacking off on holidays! Thanks guys! Really made me feel wanted!

Right, better get moving before my toes go black and fall off!

Bye for now!

Snow

Friday - We have got at least 6 inches of snow here - beautiful! Everything is utter chaos - will post photos soon!

More promised for the weekend too - haven't seen snow like this since I was a kid...

Oh, and I am writing this at home on our new laptop! Yay, I join the 21st century!

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Let it snow let it snow let it snow!

Well the forecast says it will start to snow at midday, i.e. in around 20 minutes time. Supposed to snow for the rest of the day, getting heavier as time goes on. Might be a short day today!

I am going to be off work tomorrow anyway as my daughter has got a check up about having a brace fitted - poor girl!

I will see if I can get some good snow photos tomorrow, especially in my home town where they have almost completely failed to grit the roads - most are now just ice-rinks!

Ah well, back to work, Coke and doughnuts. Want one? I have got a few spare!


12.15 - No snow yet! It is LATE! Like the busses and trainsm, I guess, delayed by the weather?

12.45 - Still no snow! I think they have lied again!

1.30 - No sign of the snow. This is getting silly!

3.25 - I think that something is trying to fall now. Very fine, but there is definitely something in the air!

Christmas Highlights

Thought I would share a few of the highlights of this year's holiday:

1. I drank a lot of wine - not sure where it all went to, but we bought loads and I only have one bottle of red left!
2. We had a barbeque on Christmas Eve - it was great fun, the Turkey Burgers went down a treat!
3. The kids got us up at 4am! I thought this was supposed to get better as they got older, but clearly not.
4. On Christmas Day we just ate whatever we fancied. We cooked up a gammon (cooked in Coke, apples and Maple Syrup - fantastic!), made bread, cakes, home made sweets, etc. We love doing Christmas Day like this, far better than slaving over a huge meal that no one really wants by the time it is ready...
5. On another day we did a huge piece of pork - it was in the over for a ridiculous amount of time but it cooked to perfection, with the best crackling I have ever had.
6. In a drive to keep spending to a sensible level this year there were no big presents for Mrs RC and myself, just little things that would be appreciated. It was great because everything was carefully chosen and really fun to open. We also restricted spending on the kids a bit more this year, but they didn't seem to notice and loved everything that they got.. Again I think it was a matter of us choosing things with more care and consideration.
7. My dad managed another classic. He phoned up on the afternoon of New Year's Eve. He was running out of food, could I pop to the supermarket and restock for him. Great. We had worked things out so that there would be no need to enter into the insanity of food shopping on that day - I mean, most shops would be shut the next day so everyone would be out panic buying toilet rolls and stuff because civilization could well come to an end before the 2nd! So, once more into the breech, once more! It was utter madness! Cars were lined up down the road outside a totally packed car park as everyone and his dog tried to do that last minute shop. Thank God for bicycles! I don't know what happened while I was inside the store, but they had a Code 2 in the car park, which needed Police, Paramedics and an Ambulance! Still, my duties done, we had an nice evening seeing in the New Year, secure in the knowledge that my dad would not starve.
8. Then we finally had a decent fall of snow in our area, just in time for the return to school and work! Up until this time the snow seened to avoid a 15 mile radius around my town, all we got was a sort of sugar dusting! All around us there was mayhem - people at works parties getting showed in, even a store full of people had to spend the night in one place! Oh well, shouldn't really complain!

Anyway, there are some of my Christmas highlights!

Back soon!

Happy New Year!

Hi everyone!

I hope that you all had a fantastic Christmas! I certainly did, the best for a long time. Food was a mix of all sorts, including a lot of stuff where we looked through cookery books and said "Hey, I want to do this!" Great fun. We also had the best roast pork ever, with the perfect crackling - ooh yeah...

The kids loved their stuff - Spore is now the family favourite PC game, closely followed by the mayhem of 4 player Mario Wii.

We had a sort of white Christmas - while the rest of the country, indeed the rest of the county, was digging itself out of snow drifts, we just had a dusting from time to time. Today we have around 2 inches of snow, the most so far this winter.

So, what does 2010 have in store? I have no idea, but I have a feeling that it is going to be good.

Resolutions? I don't do resolutions, but I do have a few things that I would like to do this year...


What are they?

Why should I tell you?

Oh, you think that I was about to spill the beans, this being my blog and all and I just started talking about them. Oh OK, as it is you, but don't go telling anyone else, OK?


I guess the main thing is that I want to play guitar in public again. I am going to work on a short set and then ask a musical friend of mine if I can play in the interval of one of his gigs. That way I don't have to play for an entire evening, but I can see if I can pull it off. If it goes well I can expand the set, if it is a disaster, well never mind! Of course, I will post clips here as I go to get some feed back before I go and stand in front of a live audience - if I can't do it in front of a camera there will be no point attempting a gig will there?

It looks like we might be getting a new dog this year too - Mrs RC says we need another dog, and my resistance is weakening. We shall see how things work out.


Well I think that is about it for now - morning break is over, so I had better get back to work!

Bye for now!