Geese attack! Cat attack!

After school (yes school was open!) I agreed to take the kiddiwinks up to the lake (about 150 yards from our house so not really a strenuous trek) to feed the ducks. Two of the neighbour's children came with us too.

Well, there weren't many ducks, but there was a fair outbreak of Canada geese.


Yikes!

So we fed them. The poor goosies and duckies (and three swans) haven't got much space for swimming, so they milled about, "honk, quack, honk, hiss, honk quack". The whole lake, barring a water hole here and there, is frozen. I've seen photos from Victorian times of ice skaters and even horse and carriages going across the lake. But I wouldn't chance it myself. Not that I have a horse and carriage mind you, or ice-skates for that matter. I wonder if I could drive a Citroen Saxo across it? Perhaps not.


The sun was starting to set, turning the sky pink. It was quite beautiful. And peaceful. There's something so quiet and peaceful about snow. Unfortunately, some of my photos are a little blurred, I'm not sure if the camera has condensation problems or whether I'm just useless!


My beloved hills.




The geese took umbrage at us leaving and chased us...creating screaming children left, right and centre.
On the way back we picked up Squidge's friend from school to take her to play at our house for an hour. Squidge was pretty chuffed about that and got rather excited. Lol.

Here is the final nativity on Epiphany yesterday. Wise men n' all. Next year a wooden nativity is essential. If only for protection against the local wildlife...our cat.


Chatterbox trying to restrain the cat. Who is officially snow-crazy.
So she just walked about on our Epiphany story pages. Why do cats so love to sit on pieces of paper?



I've had a lovely day today. Mum and I walked into the village. It was simply beautiful with the sun sparkling on the snow. I finally got to the post-office and we visited my Grandma, who at 90 is housebound and doubly housebound with the snow. Mum and I had some good chats as we walked. Thoroughly enjoyable.

On the way home we passed the girls' school and I saw Chatterbox having a whale of a time in the snow with her friends. "KISS!!", she bellowed through the fence, puckering up her lips. Lol, she's so cute.

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.