December Frosty Starts

“Anyone can slay a dragon …but try waking up every morning and loving the world all over again. That’s what takes a real hero.”
— Brian Andreas

The frost was beautiful this morning. Overnight the temperature dropped and it was almost as if there had been a light dusting of snow. The meadow always looks completely different when the weather changes, so we headed down there pretty early (for a Sunday anyway) to get some photographs.

Additionally, to give Buddy a run! He loved it and it seemed that the frozen ground allowed him to pick up a lot more animal scents than usual as he was incredibly busy throwing himself in all the bushes and lakes.

This afternoon we watched the new Disney film ‘Frozen’ at the cinema, so it seemed fitting that I come home and blog the photographs from this mornings trek! That and the fact that watching a film about cold, snow and ice always makes you feel much more colder than usual when you leave the cinema.

The ‘storms’ are supposedly hitting us again this evening, although not as bad as before. Hopefully we will get to see in  the New Year with electricity, warmth and trees intact!

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It Was Christmas Eve…

“Storms come, and are so personal, they seem to know your address and have the key to your house.”
― Reverend Jesse Jackson

It was a dark stormy night, not a creature was disturbed, not even a mouse. Unless you include us, then sleeping was made very difficult by the storms that hit our fair shores! Newspaper weather reporters have for days been proclaiming 100kmh winds, but this time they were right.

Reports of around 60mph winds were to be recorded at midnight and we decided to venture out in to the surrounding area before they did arrive. The rain was heavy and the roads were flooded in many areas. Trees had shed many of their small branches, but bigger limbs had also come loose.

Driving on the A roads were just as treacherous. Lorries going in the opposite direction failed to slow down, even for the deepest of puddles (road lakes), throwing  all sorts of water on the windscreen making it difficult to see. We beat a hasty retreat home as the weather got even worse. The wind and rain lashed against the windows and the only other sounds we could hear were toppling wheelie bins and the odd ladder not properly fastened. Midnight came and so did the winds, if the house wasn’t made of brick I would of thought we’d have blown away! It got so bad that the power was knocked out… twice!

The morning was much calmer, but the damage had been done. Trees had been damaged and many lay in the roads. Most of the locals had got up early and cleared the local roads using cow sounding chainsaws. However, we had some errands to run in the afternoon and we saw many of the roads still hazardous to all but the hardiest of 4×4 driving locals.

In fact, we went Christmas present delivering to a family member who was without power since 6pm yesterday – possibly still is now if he isn’t reading this blog!

Many of you may know the meadow that appears in many of the blogs, well today it’s lived up to it’s name of being the water meadow….

Despite the weather though, Christmas continues and up and down the country relief efforts are underway for the harder hit areas. Luckily there weren’t too many casualties – fingers crossed Christmas is a quiet one this year.

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