Days Of Thunder

We were just finishing breakfast this morning when the ground shook and there was an almighty bang. There's been a lot of noise lately with melting snow falling off rooftops but nothing quite like this. A quick check round the house revealed that all the ceilings were intact but looking out of the bedroom window it was clear where the noise came from.



Across the back lane a wall had collapsed. We had noticed first thing that it looked to be bowing a little and I think that water had got between the inner and outer wall and frozen causing catastrophic wall-tie failure. At present we're waiting to see if the council send round the highways people to seal off the road as it's impassible, and the inner wall looks like it could go at any moment.

On a less exciting note, Christmas was good, and Santa was very generous. It's back to work tomorrow then looking forward to seeing friends from afar on Friday night.

Pies galore

Following the mincemeat we made a couple of weeks ago, here are seven dozen mince pies we recently made.

We’ve still got six jars of mincemeat left. So it’ll be mincemeat sandwiches, mincemeat curry, mincemeat casserole….

Marie

Winter

When icicles hang by the wall
And Dick the shepherd blows his nail
And Tom bears logs into the hall
And milk comes frozen home in pail.

From From Love's Labours Lost, Act V. Sc. II by William Shakespeare



Well, I don't know about Dick the shepherd, or Tom bearing logs, but we've certainly go icicles by the dozen at the moment. These ones are about 20 feet above ground, precariously hanging over our back door. We try not to slam the door too hard.

They're there because on Friday morning on my way to work I saw a temperature of minus eight degrees. A colleague saw minus eleven on his way to work. Brrr.