Marmalade Crazy

Husband simply loves making marmalade. I am not so sure. The kitchen turns into a sticky mess. Husband collects old Red Current Jelly jars, Tomato Chutney jars, damson jam jars etc etc but we do not soak off the labels. It gets quite confusing to open a jar of chutney to find Husband's marmalade instead! This year Husband has made four batches , two of which worked very well, the other two batches have not set properly. Consequently the kitchen is festooned with marmalade jars (sticky) waiting to"set". Husband is convinced they will set!! I shall wait until Husband is out of the house playing tennis and stick the marmalade into a pot and reboil it all. But. . . . . . . . . . . not today, it is our 38th wedding anniversary and we are going out to lunch!

Oh No, They Are Flooding In Again!

Is anyone else inundated with unwanted catalogues that arrive through the post? About two years ago I had a blitz to try and stem the flow. First of all I removed my name and address on each catalogue and stuck on labels "Return to Sender". Our local sorting office seemed to have a vendetta - they tore off the labels and sent the catalogues back to me! I then tried emailing the companies concerned asking them to remove my name and address, however this seemed to have a double whammy effect - I received not only one catalogue but two! Nobody had bothered to read my email, obviously the easiest thing to do was to add my name and address again! I am certainly not going to spend money on telephoning and the arrival of these catalogues seem to keep the Post Office in business.

Oh No - Not More Snow!

In the last 30 years that I have recorded the weather there have been a handful of days when the temperature has not reached above zero - until now. The back end of last year saw a record number of consecutive days with below zero temperatures. Suddenly again today, as I write, it is minus 0.5C and snow is falling. I used to get quite excited when there was an unusal temperature occurrence, whether the weather be hot or whether the weather be cold, but now it just feels normal!

Non-skid, Non Chic

This is the best way to ensure not to slip in the icy conditions - wear your socks! The temperatures have been down to minus 13C and yesterday it snowed again. We braved the roads all the way to the supermarket - admittedly I had my hat over my eyes - oh no, I was not the driver by the way!

Sadly my trusty socks were not man enough to get me down to the pub quiz for the special Christmas edition.

We woke up to minus 11.4C

A view over the fields behind our house. I could hardly believe the thermometer this morning registering minus 11.4C. I have been recording the weather for over 30 years and only once have I recorded minus 12C in this neck of the woods and that was about 25 years ago.

Snowed In!

I was right to be a "Scaredy Cat" (see yesterday's post), overnight we have had a large dumping of snow! These pictures are taken through our upstairs windows and as I write it is still snowing hard. When it has finished tipping down I will enjoy myself outdoors in the field behind our garden. I love tramping through virgin snow on my crutches as I am relatively safe from slipping. My brother, safely back in Australia, rang through, over-excited about the cricket - he turned "native" as soon as he emigrated and wholeheartely supports "Down-Under"!

Scaredy Cat!

There was just a slight dusting of snow here overnight in North Wiltshire but quite icy roads. I decided to go swimming (this is a 20 minute drive along narrow lanes for part of the way). I was chugging away through my usual 30 lengths when I noticed a few people leaving the pool in a hurry. I looked up and found the snow was chucking it down outside. Well . . . . . . . I am nervous of driving in snow so I hurtled out of the pool, dragged on shoes, sweater and coat without stopping to dry myself or put on underwear or have the usual shower. The road was white until I reached the other side of Tetbury where it had not been snowing at all! I arrived home with sodden clothes and dripping hair - my husband was amazed at the bedraggled sight!