So here I sit

surrounded by pine needles.

I've finally removed the tree and have lost the will to clean. Carrying the tree out of the living room and through the hall has left most of the tree on the floor. The remaining twig is in the back garden and I need to sweep up the tree.

School is closed today due to the inclement weather. It's a bit brighter today, although we are getting an occasional snow flurry. So there is a cacophony symphony of children's voices upstairs. My grand plans have once again been foiled. I really need to get into the village today but I'm not walking 2.5 miles in deep snow with whinging delightful children. Lol, it's Squidge, she does not do cold feet. No amount of thick socks and wellies will protect her delicate little toes and after about 15 minutes she moves into auto-moan. And after another 15 minutes she starts skriking.

'Skriking' now there's a word. Pamela mentioned it in my comments the other day. It's a dialect word used round the Lancashire area, which means crying. "Stop tha' skriking tha's bein' a reet mard!" It's an Old Norse word, the language spoken during the Viking age. There were various settlements around the north-west of England and some words have stuck as dialect. Skriking in Norwegian also to mean to cry or shriek.

So, back to the snow. Here are some pics taken the other day when went out sledging:

Chatterbox setting her sledge up

Yesterday we had one of Chatterbox's friends over for tea. Her mum was telling me that they went sledging on this hill. Chatterbox's friend whizzed down and took her Dad clean off his feet, up into the air, and landed on his shoulder and ended up having to have a week off work. Lol - but a sympathy lol of course.

The canal

There's a couple who live in a canal boat who have visited our church a couple of times. I wonder how they're doing with the canal all frozen up?

So I must be away to vacuum and then the wise men are making their appearance.

They shall bring gold and frankincense, and shall proclaim the praise of the LORD.
Isaiah 60:6b (RSV)

Collect:
O God,
who by the leading of a star
manifested your only Son to the peoples of the earth:
mercifully grant that we,
who know you now by faith,
may at last behold your glory face to face;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Twelfth Night and Epiphany AND SNOW

Well as the night draws in we are entering Twelfth Night the eve of Epiphany*. It's traditionally the day to take down the decorations (since Victorian times anyway) but I'm not sure I'll get around to it today.

Tomorrow the wise men arrive at the Nativity, bringing their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. It is also traditional to leave the Nativity up until Candlemas, however, our cat who is incredibly bored keeps attacking it. Either sitting messing with it or launching herself at it from a great distance. I need to get a more sturdy Nativity next year.



Tomorrow we will share the story of the three wise men - the magi, and we will talk about the meaning of the gifts. There are various theories about the meaning of the gifts, I've chosen to share the following with the girls.

Gold

Gold is a precious metal – Jesus is the most precious gift ever given
Gold for a King – Jesus is the King of kings.
Gold for purity - the purer the gold the higher the value – Jesus is the purest who ever walked the earth and is more valuable than all the treasure on earth.

Frankincense

Incense for a priest - Jesus, He is our great High Priest in Heaven.
Incense for sacrifice – Jesus was the perfect sacrifice, He is the Lamb of God
Incense for prayers – Jesus was in the perfect relationship with God, He prayed without ceasing and only did and said what the Father told Him.

Myrrh

Myrrh is an anointing oil – Jesus is the Anointed One, the Messiah (Christ)
Myrrh is an embalming oil – reminding us that Jesus will die
Myrrh symbolises suffering – Jesus suffered for our sins

Well today I took the girls to school, the snow so deep it went right over Squidge's wellies. Hubs didn't set off for work until 12 noon because of the snow. At about 11.30 am the school website announced that school would be closing at 1.00 pm so off I trudged again, the snow nearly over MY wellies this time.

I do love the picturesque scenery, but it does rather make life difficult! I couldn't get to church this morning or the post office. But never mind because I did get some deep cleaning done and some ironing. So at least I was productive. The cold has been causing some problems, the boiler keeps leaking because the water drain pipe (it's a condensing boiler) keeps freezing up and so the water has nowhere to go and last night as I started to run the bath for the girls we discovered the drain pipe for the bath was frozen up outside. It took up two hours to unblock it, by that time it was too late. I had to drag myself out of bed early so they could be bathed this morning. My brain can't cope with getting up when it's dark! LOL.

The girls are upstairs playing with Chatterbox's friend from school who is staying for tea tonight. They're playing fashion models and keep coming downstairs in various outfits.

Hope it's not too snowy near you. Keep warm - unless you're reading from the southern hemisphere, in that case keep cool.

*I read the blog of an author called Kimberly Conway Ireton today and she had written some beautiful thoughts about Epiphany.

Sledging!

Allposters

Has this chap not noticed that there is no snow? He could do with some wheels man.

Too much snow to go ice skating because we can't get the car out. But hurrah and huzzah we're going sledging! Squidge and Chatterbox very excited. Mummy very excited. Daddy bit grumpy hesitant because he thinks it'll be dark and very chilly soon, lol.

Allposters

How hubs imagines our sledging trip is going to turn out.

Oh, p.s., the last picture is of Captain Lyon, I think his 1820's expedition to find the North West Passage - scury and ice made him turn back (must have been quite a shock to find ice in the Arctic :P ). Read about it here: Captain Lyon's Private Journal

BIG Snow

Very BIG snow today.

Floods

The floods last night in Cockermouth were atrocious, I can't imagine how frightening it must have been in the town centre with the floods raging through the streets and creeping up the stairways of their homes. 12.4 inches in rainfall fell in 24 hours, the waters in the town reached 8 ft. My prayers are with all the people who have lost homes and businesses.




But particularly my prayers are with the family of Police Constable Barker who lost his life trying to protect others when the bridge pictured above collapsed. Such a brave man.

A Mish Mash

I love this cartoon. In a facebook meme thing today the question was asked, 'Is the cup 1/2 empty or 1/2 full?'. For me it's either. Depends on what day it is. Perhaps I'm 'moody', lol.

Anyway, back to the weather. I think that perhaps I concede that the rain is getting a liiiitle too much. We have flooding in one of our local towns with the river overflowing onto the flood plains and even in our village, see here, here and here. The Lake District has had to shut a load of schools - it is now no longer known as The Lake District, but simply The Lake :)

My back garden is a quagmire and I think I need my TARDIS to escape THE FLOOD!!! You'll have to excuse me, I'm rather excited by the impending Dr Who episodes coming up at Christmas after watching The Waters of Mars the other day.

I've not been well with a tummy bug and then bad chest/head cold. So hopefully my posts will be a bit more organised and less 'bipolar' (lol) soon.

Shiver Me Timbers!

I am rarely surprised by the weather. And yet here I am talking about it. But I'm English. It's what I do...

Have you noticed the link to the Met Office Weather Warnings in my sidebar? And have you noticed that it keeps warning about extremely wet weather in the North West? Well durrr. Really it's a given. November + North West + Pennines = rain. Shocker.

However, we have had a few brisk storms recently. We've not been too bad, but apparently it's been pretty breezy down south: See here at Times Online (the comments are often amusing - I particularly like 'A storm? In November? What next?' Pretty much what I was thinking, but hey-ho if you have column inches to fill and one is British what else can one do but discuss the weather?). On one online newspaper article there was a photo of some chap at a beach flying supermanesque in the very strong wing blowing in off the briny waves.

An aside, here are some sea distress signals:

Distress signal = MAYDAY (from French venez m'aider 'come help me') denotes immediate danger of loss of life or vessel.

Urgency signal = PAN PAN (pronounced 'pon pon', from French panne, which generally refers to a mechanical breakdown or failure. As an aide mémoire manuals teach 'Possible Assistance Needed' as a way to remember the correct words to use). Denotes difficulties but not immediate danger to life or vessel.

Ahhahhaarr Jim-Lad, tha' durst not be wantin' to be droppin' down into Davy Jones' Locker now.

Yep, just finished watching a season of Deadliest Catch matey.

Have a grand day me hearties!

Taking the English weather conversation to a new depth

Conversation with a friend down at school:

Friend: "Nice weather" [sarcasm]
Moi: "Lovely" [equally sarcastic]

Conversation with neighbour walking up from school:

Neighbour: "I'm glad it's stopped raining it was tipping down first thing!"
Moi: "Yes, I was glad because I didn't want to go in my car because I'm running out of petrol".

You see. We aren't fascinated by weather, it's ingrained. It's like a social no-no to not mention the weather in any short conversation with friends, neighbours, random old men walking their dog.

In the USA I imagine any business networking to go like this:

A: Hi, I'm Bob from Manhattan, I work for Cheese conglomerates.
B: Nice to meet you. I'm Jenny from Poughkeepsie and I'm in bananas.
(Conversation goes on and by the end of the discussion they know each other's family names, jobs, life story. Business cars are swapped, invites given out for families to meet, etc).

In the UK the business networking would go like this:

A: Cold this morning.
B: Yes, weatherman said it was going to rain.
A: Glad it didn't, I've got my washing out.
B: (silence as racks brains to think of something to say)
A: (awkwardly) Well, I must nip to the loo before the meeting starts.
B: Nice to meet you.

Ok, ok, ok, so I'm exaggerating national stereotypes :)

Off to empty dishwasher.

It's raining, you know.

:)

Slightly cold, slightly warm, and a bit in between...

Us Brits, we like to talk about the weather. It's a conversation starter, it's an ice-breaker, it's something to talk about in those awkward moments when you can't think of something to say, it's something to say to random old men you pass in the street, "Nice day", "Aye, better than yesterday" [walks on].

Yet the British weather isn't generally extreme or interesting. I mean we have the odd flood, but that's about it. We've had one hurricane in my lifetime...it was very small and we're still talking about it (and the weatherman who pooh-pooed the idea of a British hurricane will NEVER hear the end of it). It's never VERY hot, it's never VERY cold, it's never REALLY stormy. Our weather just pootles gently along in a very, well, British kind of way. "Well, I was thinking of being really hot today, but you know that's just not British, too extreme, ladies might get their ankles out by George!".

Having said that, it was flamin' freezing* this morning and summery** this afternoon. A girl never knows whether to take her cardi off or not!

Key:
* dropped below 15 C (59F)
** went above 15 C (59F)

Hope you're having a great Monday!