White out

It has been an exciting couple of days here. We decided to walk to the nearest shops on Wednesday. We were running out of milk, and we get bad tempered in our house if we don't start the day with a milky coffee. Darling d came along because she gets bad tempered if she doesnt have enough sweeties.

We live at the top of a small hill, and the car can't quite manage it....

I am the one attached to Porridge with a knitted bee hive on my head made of Porridge hair.

Mission was safely accomplished and we returned with the little that could be carried on foot.

We cancelled everything and got in more wood...and more wood.. and huddled round the wood stoves. I have to say that my feelings towards them have changed from outright hostility at the amount of attention they demand to a kind of mild affection, but I daresay that will pass with the snows.

Supplies were again getting rather low today, so we wondered if we should attempt the hill in the car. After all, we saw the tracks of our neighbours who didnt seem to have any difficulty. It was time for some panic buying. The skies were relatively clear, the roads salted (apart from our hill) and the snows were melting slightly in the afternoon "heat" of 1°C.

We arrived at the shops without incident and loaded up with everything one might need for several weeks isolation. When we emerged from the shops, a cloud resembling a Stephen King horror film set was blackening the sky. Five centimetres of snow fell in the short time it took for us to get back to our hill. We managed to get three quarters of the way up before the wheels started to spin and the car flailed from side to side. We were forced to abandon it and carry the shopping through the blizzard. Those tiny brave points of light in the gloom are the headlights.

While we were at the shops, Darling d had stopped by to see a friend in the hope that we would pass by later and collect her. Mysweet decided to back down the hill, because the road is narrow with two big ditches either side of it. He thought that this might be the only chance to get Darling d before all of this stuff started to freeze.

I called him to see whether he had arrived safely, and he told me he was hovering over a ditch at the bottom of the hill and was trying to dig away the ice. Of course Porridge and I raced down the hill to offer our assistance by way of supervising and making helpful remarks.

He managed to move the car to safety and we walked up the hill to our house. Darling d is still stuck in the town at the house of a young gentleman friend of hers. Now, how did she manage to organise that?

The top of the slippery slope

Friday was my last workshop before the Christmas holidays. I was to drive 100 kilometres to a music school in Rennes to give a masterclass in the interpretation of jazz standards.

I was a little nervous about the weather, slept very little during the night before, and almost singlehandedly brought down the website of meteo france by my constant visits there in hope of an improvement in the negative temperatures and snow forecasts.

When it finally got light enough, the view from the window was not promising, and a walk down our hill confirmed that I was likely to go down it faster than I wished and not be able to get back up it again. I called the school and postponed, and suddenly all the stress disappeared, I realised that I was on holiday and felt about ten years old...snow seems to have that effect on those not actually stuck in it somewhere. The feeling persisted until today and so we took a family walk to see whether we were still stuck at the top of the hill.

Darling D ran round the garden throwing snowballs for Porridge to chase...

Mysweet bravely drove the car down the hill, delighted at the chance for some Jeremy Clarkson- type car handling. Darling D just HAD to get to a party, so he drove her to a friend's house.

Some of us found the snow so exhilarating that they were compelled to run about in it and then roll about in it.

It was an improvement on the things she usually rolls in, anyway...