Good morning to you all. Boy, did our weather change in a heartbeat! One evening we went to bed with about six to eight inches of snow on the ground and temperatures hovering just below freezing. The next day we wake up to no snow and temperatures a balmy, Spring-like 46o. We’d had rain over night as well as rising temperatures and naturally, with so much snow on the ground, there was widespread flooding. Our regular trek around the Edgecote estate was impassable due to the flooded Cherwell – not even Penelope with her high-legged Wellingtons was able to cross the river this time! Continue reading “17 February 2013”
10 February 2013
Good morning to you all and have we got a lot to get through this morning!
I’ve had a very disconcerting time this week. A week ago last Wednesday I developed a cold – it started with a sore throat and then, by about Friday or Saturday, it had moved up into my ears. Fortunately, it never developed into a stonkingly bad cold and the symptoms have been considerately mild apart from the fact that both my ear canals are completely stuffed and I am (still, eleven days later) wandering around in a world of virtual silence. It’s like living perpetually under water (although without the issues one would face with regard to breathing); the sounds that one can hear are muted and seem distant – I’m sure you’ve all had similar experiences and know what I mean. Continue reading “10 February 2013”
3 February 2013
Good morning on this post-Groundhog Day – we certainly saw our shadows yesterday; it was bright, sunny with clear blue skies. Now what does that mean again? Ah, yes:
If Candlemas be fair and bright,
Winter has another flight.
If Candlemas brings clouds and rain,
Winter will not come again.
It has already been (and will undoubtedly continue to be), a great weekend of sport, possibly my favourite weekend of the year. Yesterday we had the start of the Six Nations Rugby competition in which this year the English team is reckoned to have a decent chance of topping the table. Without revealing any of yesterday’s results, let us remind ourselves that the English team always has the capacity to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory so we’ll see how things work out over the course of the competition. Continue reading “3 February 2013”
27 January 2013
Good morning to you all and a splendid start of the week to everyone. It looks like we are beginning to emerge from the freezer in spite of the weather forecasters’ predictions that we could expect several more feet of snow in the next few days. Indeed, Ms Playchute was to have taken herself swimming early yesterday morning but the forecast for Friday night was so dire that she imagined we’d be lucky if we were able to climb out of an upstairs window with all the snow which they were predicting. So, instead of rising early and taking herself off to the pool, she turned over and went back to sleep without actually checking outside to see that (a) there had been no more snow and (b) the thaw had started.
Now the forecasters are predicting massive flooding with the thaw set to commence and heavy rain predicted for the rest of the week to come. Great – more muddy mornings!
20 January 2013
The cold, cold, cold spell the forecasters have been predicting is still not here but I suppose it could be a matter of perception. Temperatures for the past few days have been hovering just around the freezing mark which is cold, admittedly, but does that really qualify as cold, cold, cold? I’m not sure. So it was interesting to run across a little comparison site on the BBC web site (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21044545). While it’s -1 o Celsius here, it tells me that it is -38 o C (-36 o F) in Yakutsk, Russia. So, one can’t really say that we are enduring cold, cold, cold temperatures in comparison. At the same time, it’s worth noting that Los Angeles is enduring temperatures as low as 17 o C (63 o F) and Sydney, Australia is managing to struggle along with temperatures of 37o C (99 o F). It’s all relative, I guess.
13 January 2012
Well, the cold, cold, cold spell the weather forecasters have been predicting for the past week or so has still not arrived. Instead, we’ve been blessed with the arrival of merely a cold spell. We awoke to a smattering of wet snow on Saturday which looked fairly pretty as it was coming down but which melted more or less the moment it hit the ground. Everywhere is still muddy as distinct from frozen which, in my view, would be preferable. If it is going to be cold it might as well be very, very cold – I could do without the mud and sludge. Continue reading “13 January 2012”
6 January 2013
Good morning to you all and a Happy New Year! We’ve had a fairly pleasant week with moderately tolerable weather – the cold, cold, cold spell the forecasters were predicting has not arrived (yet) and, for the most part, we’ve had reasonably dry skies. That’s not to say we’re any less water-logged than we have been recently – the recreation ground where Miss Miggins and I stroll of a morning, is absolutely sodden and the railway cutting, which has featured in previous posts, is still under water and hence, impassable. Actually, it’s been flooded and hence obstructed for some weeks now and Molly has developed a new routine – she no longer starts down the cutting but instead now looks at me to seek guidance about the direction of our morning stroll. Nope, we still can’t go down that way, I’m afraid. Continue reading “6 January 2013”
30 December 2012
OMG! Did we really eat that amount of food in that short a period of time? And, is there really that much left over? I would include the menu Penelope prepared (along with splendid contributions from Nick and Lucy) but it would take up far too much space. Let’s just say we had turkey, ham and barbequed pesto-salmon along with a huge quantity of vegetables and stuffing along with a choice of desserts. Penelope catered for about fifty-three and there were, in fact, only six of us (not including Annabelle) so what happened to the other forty-six people she was expecting I do not know. Continue reading “30 December 2012”
23 December 2012
Good morning to you all and I hope you’ve survived the end of the world. If not, well I guess those whom we mocked were right after all. And indeed, if the world did come to a fiery end, I guess this will never get posted. Too bad.
(If you haven’t already deduced, I am writing this a couple of days early – before the end of the world. In fact, we are off to town on Saturday for an outing with friends and won’t have time to put anything together before Sunday’s publication date. Hence, the early preparation).
I did enjoy Steph’s e-mail the other day which included the weather forecast for the week ahead.
16 December 2012
Good morning from a soggy, soggy Byfield. We had freezing cold temperatures early in the week which were then followed by milder weather accompanied by lashings and lashings of rain. I suppose that’s what we should expect at this time of year. I had my hair cut on Friday (what little there is left) and the hairdresser asked me which I preferred – the freezing cold or the lashing rain? No contest, from my perspective – since I have to walk a dog twice a day, I greatly prefer the freezing cold. You can always bundle up for the cold temperatures and, at least with freezing temperatures, you and the dog don’t get caked in mud. Continue reading “16 December 2012”