Snowed in in The View from the Terrace

Yesterday The Beast from the East met Storm Emma coming up from Southern Europe. We are right on the edge of the red weather warning that was issued for South Wales. At 9pm Chris arrived. He lives in Hereford 12 miles away but works just up the road from here, he was on the 2-10pm shift and, even though they had closed early, he found he couldn’t get home. The roads were so icy he couldn’t get up a hill on the main road. So he left his car in the village, walked up here, and spent last night on our sofa.

Since last night it has snowed continually. We were wondering if Chris would be able to get home today, but they have been gritting the main roads and he managed the journey this afternoon, after driving Hubby to the next village to pick up a prescription and buy a few supplies. There is no way Hubby or Tony could get their cars down the lane!

The snow is almost as high as in 1981, when we woke to about a foot of it. That year Chris was just 5 months old and we were snowed in for a week. We couldn’t even get to the next village and our local village shop didn’t stock baby milk, so I boiled the ordinary milk and he was fine. We also had power cuts and frozen pipes. I remember bringing in buckets of snow and waiting for it to melt to flush the toilet! Then the roof on our kitchen collapsed under the weight of the snow. Our pipes are better lagged now and, so far, no power cuts. Hubby was out this afternoon clearing the snow from the kitchen roof just in case.

We have been getting lots of different birds at the bird feeders. Usually it’s mainly blue tits, long tail tits and sparrows with an occasional robin. I saw 3 robins on the forsythia at the same time today and we have had blackbirds at the feeders, and this morning there was a redwing thrush. I have never seen one of those in the garden before.

I must admit that, in spite of all of the inconveniences, I still enjoy the snow. It makes the countryside look so beautiful and creates an atmosphere of tranquility, life stops for a while and there is time to breathe.