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 :-)

Snow and sickness

It's snowed, hurrah! dd2 had her nose pressed against the glass this morning, for her 1st proper look at snow. The excited look on her little face was a joy to behold. :-) Dd1 and ss we're similarly impressed and we're planning snowball fights between them, along with a mini snowman, which it will be mini, considering the amount of snow actually on the ground.

As you can see from the photo I've taken from the shop window, hardly swimming in the stuff are we! still there's a crisp covering in the garden, enough to have fun in, even if not enough to spend a whole day sledging in (unless you're up Frogget Edge)

Dh is at home with the kids today, whilst I'm at work. This is due to him being a plague victim. He's too poorly to come to work, so really must be ill, he went to bed at 7 last night and was asleep before the kids. I've asked him to supervise the girls and gabe getting wellies and coats on and to chuck them in the garden, I do hope he manages this, as he was purporting to be too ill to manage even this small task :-o He does feel rather hot, so I did make him lemsip prior to bailing out. I left SS with instructions on sandwich fillings for lunch, and where to find fruit, yoghurts and fruity/biscuity nibbles for elevenses and lunch, hopefully between the three of them , they can cobble something together, without having to bother dh too much, although dd2 will be gutted to find no babybel in the fridge, its her favourite at the moment, now she's discovered she can open them!. Dh will hopefully sit under a duvet on the sofa and get better quickly.