February

Another month, another weather front.
We were faithfully promised a big dump of snow by the forecasters this week. Sure enough, yesterday lunch time I received phone calls warning me to hop into the car immediately if I wanted to get home that evening at all. Setting off, only a few flakes were falling, but I knew that once I got to Shap summit, over which my road home passes, it could be a very different story... and it was.
At 1350 feet, it is no wonder that the A6 bears several "Road Liable to Icing" warning signs. (One presumes that they mean "icing" of the cold and slippery kind!).
The road turned ever whiter as I drove until the tracks behind the car filled in and the route was badly obscured. One idiot overtook me only to slide sideways into a fortunately positioned lay by. The driver sett off again sheepishly and sat at a polite distance behind from then on. It was quite a frightening experience, but I've driven a lot in snow and know the road very well. I was quite happy thinking of playing at snowball fights with Fox and Chris, but as I drew nearer to home, things took a disappointing turn. There was hardly any snow in the village. Bummer!

Chris had been unable to spend much time watching the weather. He was puppy-sitting for our neighbour's 13 week old BC Cally. Cally is such a little live wire that Chris had been on his toes all morning. time to reduce her protein I think, a step which Ian and Emily are already taking. She was quite polite to Fox at first, but all that soon changed when she learned what a soft lump he is. Soon she was charging at poor Fox, hitting him head on in the stomach and biting at his lips with her sharp little needles. Fox made a big show of biting back and showing his teeth, but never once actually touched her. Finally, after an hour or so, she tired and fell asleep.
Today we woke to find that the ground was white, but not very. Compared to what I'd seen fall yesterday, it was a rather meager helping. Our walk was fun however and we watched dippers hop from rock to rock on the river and a hare bounding along though the woods. the day was only slightly marred when we learned that we'd missed seeing the dog and bitch otter playing by about 10 minutes!
It's raining now.