Sunday 31 January 2010

Roro's 6th Birthday!

We had a party at home to celebrate Rowanne's 6th Birthday - everyone had a great time playing on the Wii - and Grandma Gloria made Rowanne a special cake!

Here are the pics:


Thursday 28 January 2010

Best use of playpen yet!


This playpen makes a perfect safety guard for our young Wii players. Stops them accidentally hitting anyone!

Thursday 14 January 2010

Another day at home...

The girls have had a tummy bug the last few days..... Lily has been better all day today - which means she can go back to school tomorrow! (Hurrah!)

Rowanne can't go back in until Monday - despite having been fine since mid morning - because her school has a policy that they can't go back until 48 hours after they get better (to prevent the spread of infection).

To keep Lily and Rowanne amused we did some painting - which got messy!





We also saw a little wildlife from the windows - a passing squirrel and a
blackbird!
Poor Alfie has the bug too now - so he's none too happy today. :o(

Wednesday 13 January 2010

The New Flooring!

Here are a couple of snaps of the new flooring we had put in on 5th Jan.

(a new front door - which fits properly and is easy to close and actually keeps the draughts out is next on our list!).

PS - please excuse the clutter - this is not a show home - it's for living in!







More Snow!



Today we awoke to find a surprise of ....more snow! We had anticipated rain as the thaw had definately begun the day before.



Lily and Rowanne are off school with tummy upsets already (they were off yesterday also), and then Gabi came home from the bus stop saying she'd just received a text from the college telling her that Sparsholt was closed due to the weather (they are further north than us - so possibly had more snow than us too).



Jeremy still managed to get off to work in his car alright (driving carefully as all local roads are very icy indeed).





Alfie received an invite from the doctors surgery in the post today to come and get his swine flu vaccine on the 23rd Jan - so he's now booked in for that.


Here is Alfie wearing his new "snow blower" hat that I knitting for him - I made it on the knitting machine and designed the punchcard (pattern card) for the picture myself.

Gabrielle has been busy sorting out the pheasants for tonights casserole. Gabi was on a shoot day yesterday and was given a brace and a tenner for her troubles!







Sunday 10 January 2010

Lovely Sunday!


I had a really nice relaxing day today - for once! I got up and went for a walk with Alfie on the reins this morning - taking his all terrain buggy and our camera. The paths are all very icy - quite treacherous in places! Alfie enjoyed a lovely slide/walk/dog - chase (he likes to follow passing dogs!) all the way to the Locks Heath Center - where he promptly decided he'd had enough exercise and sat on the floor. I popped him into his buggy - which thankfully pushes easily over the ice and snow (unlike our neighbours umbrella fold buggy with little wheels!) and went for a stroll - camera at the ready.

Initially I thought there would be nothing much to take pictures of - but snapped away with the camera anyway at this and that.

When I got home, uploaded the pics to the computer and started editing I was pleasantly surprised - I mean, none of them are "award winning" pics - but on the whole more successful than I had anticipated! I especially enjoyed using the zoom lense to try and capture photo's of birds - this turned out to be quite a sport!


Later in the day Jeremy took the girls out to his dad's (giving me even more peace and quiet than I usually get).

This weekend I have managed to design a punchcard (patterning device pattern card) for my knitting machine of a snow blower! Initially I was designing a snow plough - and after viewing several on "youtube" to get the details, I was fascinated by the "snow blowers" (used in the USA and Canada among other places which get lots of snow), so I made a pattern of one of these too! I then proceeded to knit a hat using the pattern (just to try it out really).... I do at some point intend to make perhaps a jumper with rows of different types of snow ploughs and snow blowers - although Jeremy thinks I'm taking it all a bit far - and that people will not know what the pictures are of because they don't see them very often here!



I hope you all had relaxing weekends too. :o)


I am taking the children to school tomorrow for the first time since last Monday (they shut Tuesday because of the snow)! School is opening at 10am in order to allow extra time to get the children to school safely.

Thursday 7 January 2010

The Big Freeze Continues!









Gabrielle eventually arrived home around 3.30pm yesterday afternoon.

Jeremy walked into work this morning - around 2 - 3 miles away and managed to make some calls etc. and also got the car home (after visiting the Tesco near work).

We were glad he made it safely home on the icy roads - and also pleased he'd managed to get bread, milk, eggs and other supplies.

The local co-op store has been completely out of bread, milk and eggs for 2 days now. They are clearly not receiving any deliveries - because the roads had not been gritted - and subsequently only main roads have been ploughed.

Hampshire County Council have employed 120 farmers for their snow plough services and are also using JCB's to clear roads.

Jeremy is thinking of driving to work tomorrow - but that may turn out to be an unwise decision because we are supposed to be getting more snow. The temperature is around -5 during the day, so the snow is quite frozen and the roads are very very icy!
Twice today - neighbours have called on us to request borrowing our sledge - to bring their shopping home from the local co-op store (both have young children and found their buggies would not work in the snow)!

Wednesday 6 January 2010

Sledging fun!






Here are the girls - sledging this morning - it got colder again and we had more snow.

Snow Joke!





Why was the sparsholt college coach not sent home earlier considering the severe weather warning issued by Hampshire County Council hours earlier?

The coach drove up and down the M27 unable to leave via usual junctions to deliver children safely home.

Many of the passengers are students under 18y, and as far as I'm aware they are legally wards of the college until delivered safely home by coach.

The driver was unprepared and didn't know what to do evidently (in words of one student - behaving like a muppet!).

The college it seems did not give any message to the driver as to where to drop the kids off, or how to find safe warm accommodation for the students for the night.

Gabrielle, 17y - and her friend of 16 or 17 along with some other 25 students were left at Hedge End bus depot - some 7 miles from home.

Jeremy and Gabi's friends mother tried to hike through to fetch the kids on foot (would have been a 14 mile round trip) but the police did not allow them entry onto m27 so they couldn't get to the girls. (I was at home with our other 3 children aged 7, 5 and 18 months).

Luckily another student happened to live at hedge end - so they made their way to his house and his mother kindly took them all in and they were able to change into some dry clothes and given a sofa and blankets to stay the night.

The college has since not even phoned to see if the children got to any place of safety last night or this morning.

Thank god for mobile phones or I would be beside myself with worry, I would not even know where Gabrielle was, or if she'd found accommodation for the night!

I would hope the coach driver had checked with my child and her friends that they had somewhere to stay before they were allowed to wander off into the snow/dark on their own! I know they were within civilization/houses etc - but they are children not adults yet. Gabrielle does afterall have learning difficulties albeit minor - but on the autistic spectrum (semantic pragmatic disorder).

Gabrielle is still stranded at a friends house in Hedge end with another friend - we don't know if trains are running - we might have to try trains to get her home, or alternatively stay put for a few days!!!

Jeremy's car is abandoned 2 miles away near his workplace - he had to walk home himself last night - which took over an hour in the snow. He was glad he was wearing a ski jacket!