A glimpse of spring

So I went into the garden today to play ball with dd2 and we finally spotted some new life emerging from the ground. Eventually the above photo will contain some lovely yellow daffodils, but at present, ours being the most forsaken garden on the planet, a few shoots is all that's being managed.

The crocuses are making headway here though! (although I did find a poor purple specimen elsewhere that couldn't support the flower head on top, poor little weakling)

Finally a little fairly lonesome snowdrop, I don't know why these don't grow so well in our garden, maybe the grubs or squirrells eat them?

My quick look around the garden did set me thinking though. I do think a bit of remedial work is needed out there, I can see certain weeds getting a good foothold already and the grass is starting to escape the lawn in places and invade my border, so I guess that needs a dig.

Next doors bamboo invasion needs sorting out too, before it reaches our lawn, as that stuff digs in for miles if you let it. I'm also debating getting a small greenhouse, but as I'm sure I've blogged before, those cheap ones, just blow out of our wind ridden landscape.

This year I'm fancying growing more of our own veg, but without a greenhouse it takes far too long to ripen. We managed carrotts and spring onions last year and the usual tomatoes, but they all took ages to get anywhere compared to my friends with the glasshouses, who kept donating me courgettes, tomatoes, potatoes etc, so as I like growing things, I figure a small investment will be worth it in the long run.

Goodbye L'Orange

Specifically Buzz Lightyear orange. As the photo demonstrates, it's out with the old and in with the new, 1st magnolia, minimum of two coats, to prevent those orange undertones, then pink or purple to suit dd1, whose room it is becoming. SS in the meantime is heading into dd2's room and dd2 into dd1's (did you get that?) as too swap just two rooms about would be far to easy eh?

Valentines

Well dh outdid himself yesterday, not only did I get the huge bouquet (pictured above) I also had a lovely morning out with him. Baby/child sitting was arranged and off we went. 1st to Belper, breakfast at Fresh Basil http://www.freshbasil.co.uk/ Dh had a fry up, I had Eggs Benidict, yummy. Then we popped over to the chocolate shop, as dh hadn't been in there before
http://www.i-shouldcocoa.co.uk/ we the sauntered down the main street, until we got to the newish alternative store there, http://www.ultravioletonline.com/shop/index.php?main_page=index&zenid=tpeb0d3j9t4idn830aha61iid6 which has some lovely clothing, shoes etc and they're planning to expand into all sorts of things, including Comics......well the more the merrier is what I say!
We then sauntered upto the farmers market and perused a furniture shop that just wouldn't be done with the kids. Some time left enabled us to drive out to Scarthin Books, where we did coffee, cake and perused for a while. Lovely day.

Snowman

This is the 2nd snowman of the day, the first we made round at Meridians with her ds too, but then we got home and decided we needed a proper one in our back garden too.

More Snow!

The collective views from our house this morning.

As you can see, its a snow day here! wooo hoooo, the kids are very happy, dd1 in particular, as its her 1st snow day this year :-)

There a bit upset that Grandma isn't coming over to see them, as she's been on hols, so they've not seen her in a whole two weeks. I'm guessing they're also hoping she's brought them something back to eat or play with, so they're probably more disapointed that they have to wait for that. Fickle kids hmmmmm.

Dh says I'm happier than the kids and that I'm a total weather geek, so Karma got him back on that one, when he fell over half way down the road this morning, he did a fantastic sideways fall, in an 'argh did anyone see that, quick pick myself up and dust myself off before anyone spots it' sty-lie. Poor mite didn't have any gloves on either, as he left his with me, as we cannot find my ski gloves anywhere???? I may well have to go into the loft and get my ski trousers in a mo or two though, rude not to use them when you have chance.

The day the world went upside down!

Sunday started happily enough, I ran Pokemon Platinum pre release, a well attended event, where everyone had fun, walked Gabe back home afterwards, then left dh handling the kids, whilst I went back to store to run YuGiOh! with Mike. All was going swimmingly till it started to snow. SS had to go back to Leeds. We rang his mum, no answer.....she never rang back.....so by the time it came to take him home as originally arranged in early evening, the weather was making things slightly tricky. So we braved it. The M1 north of Sheffield turned out not to be gritted (despite signs saying gritters were out, we saw none and it was obviously not gritted, a fact Ken Livingstone has suggested on the news this evening, was due to overtime costs on a Sunday, why do anything prior to midnight eh?) Thus, when the snow got heavier, the 3 lanes, turned to one, being tentativly driven by a stream of cars. We were however still moving, unlike the opposite side of the Motorway, who just past the Barnsley turning had a bus, on its side to contend with. We viewed the que and the weather with interest as we continued north.

SS was duely dropped back at his mums, who apologised for not ringing back earlier. We were then left with a choice. Go and sit in que from hell and wait in the increasing snow for the upturned bus to be removed (with two small children in the car) or attempt to find a hotel. We did the latter. The lovely people at Premier Inn at J39 had no room, so they rang the other local ones for us until a room was found at J41. We got back in the car and headed north.

I have to admit I do like Premier Inns, we don't stay in them often, as we usually have 5 kids in tow, the last time was when dd2 was still in a travel cot, they allow 5 in a room then! Most hotels don't do 5 people to a room, more's the pity. The kids got given some goody bags, with stickers, colouring and a bedtime story in them, which made them very happy. Then we dined in the oddly named Rhubarb Triangle pub next door, prior to retiring to our room, where upon I found Elbow in Concert, ideal for persuading the kids to sleep :-) although I have to say I quite like Elbow, but with the BBC Concert Orchestera in tow, it had the edge for getting the kids to sleep.

This morning dawned with someone thumping about in the room above us (5am to be exact), although I was the only person to notice this. Dh checked the snow at 6am, which was about 6" deep! So we decided to get up and risk the drive back to Ripley. We made it for 8.15am, just in time to change the kids, particularly dd2, who got travel sick 5 mins from home, bless her, she didn't know what was happening, having never thrown up since she was a baby, her face was a picture. Ripley didn't have lots of snow when we got back, but its sure made up for it since.

We were supposed to go to Spring Fair at Brum today, if the roads are ok, we may go tomorrow, am praying school doesn't throw a snow day.

Anyway I should post some snowy photos so here they are, complete with my snowman envy, the HUGE snowman is not ours, it belongs to a family down the road who've not long been living on our street. Dd1 goes to school with their little boy, though he's two years older, I think she may have a slight crush on him :-).

Our poxy snowman (I only had fleecy gloves, nearly lost my fingers)

The fantastic Snowman down the road (I hope you don't mind me blogging this! in fact this photo doesn't do it justice)

Our snowy street, I'm loving this weather, hasn't snowed like this in years, I fetched dd1 from school on the sledge! how fab is that :-)