We made a snowman!

After the busy time of Christmas and new year it’s good to have a little peace and quiet.

For a few days we had more peace and quiet than we bargained for. I was really pleased when it started to snow last Sunday evening. Charlie was more objective about it. When we got up on Monday morning I found out why. The first thing that was wrong was that there was no electricity. Fortunately I have a battery operated alarm clock – not that it was any use, there was so much snow we couldn’t get out of the house to go to work. Charlie has a radio with batteries so we stayed in bed for a while and listened to the local news reports. Nothing was moving and schools were closed and as more snow was coming they were advising everyone to stay at home and only leave the house if necessary.

I soon discovered that the heating was off and there was no hot water. I’m so glad we have a fireplace. We lit a good fire and managed to heat some water and cook a few simple things on the fire. We just stayed in the one room to keep warm and cuddled and talked. During the afternoon we fetched the mattress and bedding downstairs. The rest of the house was becoming very cold.

We decided not too use our phones because we couldn’t charge them up. Charlie made one call, he phoned Bill to check that he was okay. He was well organised and warm.

Monday night found us sleeping in front of the dying fire. On Tuesday the electricity was back on, Yes! We still couldn’t go anywhere so we spent the morning indoors, cleared away the bedding and after lunch ventured out to explore the while world. I always forget how quiet everything is because of the snow and I always forget just how cold snow can be! We tried to clear a path and we made a snowman. There were already quite a few kids out messing around and having snowball fights. Later one or two other grown ups had started to venture out, so we swapped stories with them.

Wednesday saw the world returning to normal and we walked together to work. There weren’t many students so no classes. After spending a couple of hours catching up with any administrative stuff and gossiping with colleagues, we had we decided to walk back early and went to check on Bill. That turned out to be a good decision because he had made a batch of his famous soup so we were well fed by the time we set off for home.