The more it snows (tiddly pom)!

The UK seems to be locked in an ice box. The councils are running out of grit, breakdown services are getting 4 times the usual number of calls, water pipes are bursting and demand for gas is up 30% due to everyone turning heating up.

So how are we weathering the weather?

For the most part we're great! The sheep are costing me a fair bit extra to feed but they all seem healthy and are keeping condition. We'll be getting some lambs late on though I think as Tolly was chatting Rosie up yesterday! I couldn't move him right now even if I wanted to as the tup field is some distance and at the top of a hill whose track is currently impassable!

We've had a steady flow of guests over the Christmas period from near and very far away! They have all of course been keen to see what the beavers have been up to, and some have even walked on water!

Chris's cousin Karen came to stay with her partner Debbie between Christmas and New Year. I had never met them before and it was lovely to have them here. Karen promises to become a regular visitor to Knapdale and is hoping to get into the forest in order to practice her developing bushcraft skills.

On Saturday our friend and photographer Bill came to spend a day with us. He has a new blog called Rainy Cloud where you can find some of his fabulous photos.

Then, perhaps our biggest surprise as far as visitors go, my friend Helen and her boyfriend Tim landed on the doorstep on Saturday evening. Helen and I were at university together; she was doing her PhD while I was an undergrad, but she now lives in Perth, Australia and I haven't seen her for 8 years! It was so lovely to catch up and we had a great time showing Tim snow and ice (he'd never seen snow before this trip to the UK!) and exploring Knapdale a little.

I'm so pleased that Helen is enjoying her career as a marine biologist and hope that some day in the not too distant future, we'll be able to go out and visit them and see the wildlife that they work with every day. They both seemed suitably impressed with my charges and their activities.

Today it is just Chris and I, with Fox and Whisper for company of course. We're both full of cold and not feeling like running about, much to the dogs' dismay. The ruddy car wont start so I don't know how I'm getting to the sheep! I'll make it however even if I have to walk.