Snow!

Snow

We have had snow! Not a lot by some standards, just about 2” (5 cms), but enough to make the garden look pretty – or, at least, different. The local schools, along with many across the country, had a Snow Day.

I took photographs with my little Sony just before 8:30 a.m.

 The dogs ruined the pristine layer. They charged out and round the garden then galloped back in again. 

Barry took some photographs later with his superior Canon.

Zula, Susannah’s little Abyssinian, 2 years old today, dashed out and returned immediately. Herschel decided to investigate. He stepped delicately in the snow, flicking it off his paws and sniffing at the funny white stuff.  

Jellicoe went out later and stayed outside for some time, inspecting the scene, but Isambard viewed it all with suspicion from the safety and warmth of the sitting room.

The anemometer and wind vane had more than a dusting of snow but managed to spin in the wind that sprang up. 

The bird feeder (h’mm, should clean and replenish it!) has not had any avian visitors today but there were numbers of gulls wheeling round the tree-tops this morning.

The best barometers in the house are the cats, guaranteed to discover the hot spots. Two of them, the Somalis Solomon and Lenny, spent considerable time in the conservatory (I’m sure they enjoyed watching Le Mans with Frankie). 

Herschel cuddled up with Bertie while Isambard appropriated my chair and didn’t object when I almost sat on him, happy to share and at the same time help me compose my  blog post. 

Jellicoe, however, found the prime spot, on the bookshelf above the radiator. From the photographs you can see that he has a bent for Natural History, particularly Ornithology.

.  

It is snowing again and is forecast to continue for several hours. We are unreliably informed, by someone who knows much better than the Met Office, the AA, the RAC, and all the weather forecasters in the media, that the amber warnings of bad weather are ‘scaremongering’ and the snow is ‘localised’, with none in Wokingham, 4 miles away. This is not true but we shrug and smile – there’s no point in arguing with someone who is always so right, though usually so wrong!

Dog cars

We have a vehicle we fondly call 'the dog car' for we use it to transport four dogs (sometimes six) to the forest for their exercise. It was brand new in 1992 and even though it has done sterling service it still has only 58000 miles on the clock; that makes an average of just over 3400 miles per annum.

It has one or two strange quirks. Even though it is a French car, built primarily for use, one imagines, in the greater European land mass across La Manche, it takes an inordinately long time to heat up in the winter. It also requires more 'choke' for a longer period than would be expected. Most definitely it is Francophobe, intensely disliking French petrol and on the only two occasions it was filled with such, no alternative being immediately available, it did a passable imitation of a dying kangaroo – 'cough, cough, judder, cough, cough, splutter'.

Preparing to go to work one day I got into the driving seat and discovered the passenger foot well was full of water. Perhaps 'full' is a slight exaggeration but there were a good two inches of water sloshing about. It had rained heavily the previous night but all the windows were tightly shut and the car securely locked. Youngest daughter and I bailed out the water and were both late for school that day. The problem never arose again.

Another day I went out of the house to discover the car almost on the footpath. I had parked it at the top of the drive, which is twenty feet long, it was locked and the handbrake was engaged but somehow it had rolled back. Again, this event was unique mainly because thereafter it was 'belt and braces' – that is, handbrake and first gear were applied.

It has been broken into more than once, the windscreen smashed a couple of times, the door lock rendered useless. For the past few years we have been unable to lock it and haven't worried since we thought no-one would steal what had become such a heap of a car. Incidentally, a car can pass its M.O.T. without lockable doors but requires a petrol cap that is secure. So it seems that a car may be open to theft but its petrol should be made safe. We were proved wrong in our confidence a few days ago; when I loaded the dogs in the car I saw that the contents of the glove box were strewn across the passenger floor. I supposed that Barry had been looking for something but was surprised when he declared that he hadn't. Then we discovered that the petrol cap key was missing. We deduced that a person or persons unknown had attempted to steal the car and been thwarted because the key they found did not fit the ignition. Piqued by this glitch they had taken the key with them or thrown it away. The petrol cap was locked as required for M.O.T. so we had to call on the services of the AA to release it.

On several occasions men, young and older, have knocked at the door to enquire if we wanted to get rid of the car and we've always laughed and explained its purpose. Recently, the coal merchant looked at it and asked if it belonged to our son as it has a bike rack on the back. Our son would be mortified to be associated with this vehicle – it's growing lichen on the window frames and bumpers and looks a sorry sight. In fact, none of our children would lay claim to it and shortly, neither shall we. I opened the passenger door last week and saw a cigarette end on the floor. No-one in this family smokes. I have become increasingly uneasy at the vulnerability of this car and so we are taking advantage of Citroën's scrappage offer and replacing it with a Berlingo Multispace – lots of room for the dogs and more importantly, low carbon emission and central locking.