Sparky

More sparking from the garage. But eventually some rarrghing sounds too. Meanwhile, with the kids at Grandma's I spent the morning reading. Hurray!

Tinkering time

MrBorg has spent much of the day with 'the other woman' - see the Bike-in-a-Box blog for all the thrilling details, I'm sure he'll update it sooner or later.

He was either mending the exhaust or playing with fireworks, I'm not sure which.

Chilly

We had a light fall of snow today and a bit of hail - then clear blue skies and a cold wind, so having a spare half hour I took a wander with my camera.

A good night out

My brother and I met up with our cousin who was up from Daan Saaf briefly for a work thing. Neither of us had seen him for far too long (nine years in my case I think) so it was brilliant to catch up. We had a really good meal at the Dhabba in Glasgow's Merchant City and much laughter and silliness.
On the amble back to the station on the off-chance that the last train hadn't gone (it had) or to get a taxi (therefore we did) I took this photo from beside what-used-to-be-Borders (*sob*) looking through the arch to Royal Exchange Square.

At the duck-pond Heritage Loch

On the way back from the supermarket I stopped for a wander round the loch. I knew the loch had frozen over in the snowy weather but I had no idea there was still so much ice on it now. I was kicking myself for not having my 'good' camera with me but actually I'm ridiculously pleased with these pictures.

Home Time

Waiting for the Boy to get out of school. See the grey-white blob outside? That's the pile of snow that was ploughed out the way in the school carpark before the thaw. It must be incredibly compacted to still be sitting there - pretty mucky now though!

Airfix and Ski Sunday

The Spitfire proved a success at Christmas so now he's moved on to a Hurricane.

Later Hester enjoyed watching Ski Sunday. I think she thought they were tiny mice with sticks on their paws.

Ski Sunday has changed a bit since I last saw it (probably a number of years ago now). One thing they do now is launch some poor sod presenter down the run with a camera in one hand so you can get a skier's eye view of the course (run? whatever you call it). I know the guy's a good skier but jeez, that looked terrifying! I missed the start of the programme by a couple of minutes so I don't know if it still has the same iconic music.

Prrrrr

Contented kitteh snoozing on my lap while I knit and watch telly.

A rare moment

Miss Mouse's interaction with the cats is still a little rough so it was great to see a moment of gentle fondness between her and Hest.

She probably has a Spanish accent

You've seen Shrek 2 right?

With the encouragement of Bee Madlady a number of her subjects/loyal followers, including me, are tackling problem areas in our houses. This afternoon I targeted one of our many chaotic dumping-grounds for miscellaneous stuff, and I now I have some space in my kitchen again. The green feather, incidentally, is attached to the cupboard door because I used to bump my head on it every time I opened the cupboard. You'd think I'd learn from experience where the door is but it seems not. I do however avoid green feathers. Darwin would have loved me.

The Boy's new kilt

Thanks to Lidl the Boy has a new kilt (Mackenzie tartan should anybody care!). Sporran and hose are on order. It won't always be worn with jeans and a Darth Vader t-shirt!

Hurdy-gurdy chicken in a basket

Remember the giant snowballs from last week? This is what's left.

In other news I went on a trip to Ikea with my mother-in-law - this was the view from the cafe. Gorgeous day.

Top Gear

Hester likes television. Tonight she liked Top Gear.

Venturing out

The snow melted overnight, with astonishing speed. Swoosh, it was gone. And Toby got to go outside again without getting cold paws. Note his interesting body language - clearly his front half was relishing the adventure while his back half would actually rather be curled up with a good book and a mug of hot chocolate.

Meanwhile in the garage, Mr Borg was cutting his bike up for reasons known only to the Y chromosome.

Explanations to be found on his blog. And this gave me the opportunity to play with the 'swirly thing' in the messing-with-photos software. Yay! I rather like it, it looks as if we have a singularity in our garage. Well why not, we have all sorts of other junk in there.

Giant snowballs of DOOOOOOM

Or snowmen that somebody gave up on..

Look though, under the white - there's green stuff!

It snowed again in the night, and in fact all day up until about ten to three. The snow had begun to look a bit drab - slightly thawed and squashed-looking somehow. But another layer of snow, however thin (because it was light snow for all that it snowed for so long), made it look fresh and lovely again. Very overcast though so the photos don't do justice to it. They're in the wrong order really - the one above was on the way back from getting the Boy from school, by which time the snow had stopped. The one below was from when Miss Mouse and I were on the way up to get him.

I just looked out of the window though and it's definitely looking like it's thawing now, and about time too. It's been four full weeks of snow, which is unusual for here - and I've had enough of white. I'll regret saying this no doubt when it's drizzling and grey. But it's the variety of our climate that I like.

No Snow

The nursery car-park had been closed for a while as the snow was so deep in it (it's awkward in the best of conditions, quite a tight space and a slope up to the gate), but they managed to get a snow-plough in to clear it in time for parents' night. So now it's got an impressive snow wall - you probably don't get much idea of scale but that's a high fence to hinder break-ins/vandalism. We're having a gradual thaw but it'll take a while for that lot to melt!

An Annual Joy

The New Year edition of the Shetland Times - my aunt sends copies to us every year and I always look forward to it. I haven't lived full-time in Shetland since 1990 but I still find that when I get the Shetland Times I know somebody in it. Anyway, front-page news for this edition are the alpacas. As a knitter I say all the best to the Arnots, I really hope it works out!

Hunters in the Snow

What, no hunters? Something about the bleak gloominess of this scene really reminded me of The Hunters in the Snow (Pieter Bruegel the Elder).

The Boy is unable to smile naturally for the camera these days!

In reverse order

Bathtime for the kids and Toby can't figure this splashing-around-in-water thing at all.

My gorgeous little girl demonstrating her exquisite sense of poise and grace.

Temperatures above freezing, woohoo!

Pink sky at night

We actually had some clouds today and some more snow this morning.

A walk in the sunshine

After dropping Miss Mouse off at nursery I went for a walk for a) fresh air and b) uninterrupted photography. The clear skies may have meant a chilly day, but they also meant loads of sunshine.


I'm so desperate for colour that I'm drawn to the postbox.

And back to shades of blue.

And some more ice crystals for good measure.

This is getting BORING

However it is quite pretty. On the way back from the school today (I'll gloss over the tantrums from the three-year-old) we noticed that the surface of the snow in places has these wonderful ice crystals. One of my favourite books is The Snowflake by Kenneth Libbrecht and Patricia Rasmussen so I try to pay attention, as much as is possible when out with two kids, to the snow and ice, but I've never noticed crystals as big as these before. These photos were taken with my little Kodak compact (cracking wee camera) not the DSLR so I'm very chuffed with how they've turned out!

That's the Boy waiting patiently. He was rewarded with hot chocolate with marshmallows when we got home.

I've added the Snowfall Widget for a laugh - I'll get rid of it again when the snow melts!

Cool

The School Run, day 2. Bloody cold!

On the way home we went up to the high point to see what we could see - which was.. houses, snow and in the distance the mountains. It was a beautiful clear day, and now it's a beautiful clear night. Wheeeee, watch the mercury plummet!

The School Run

Fresh snowfall overnight meant that heading up to the school to get the Boy was hard work for Miss Mouse's little legs. Fortunately she's light enough that she doesn't sink far in!

By the time we were heading back down the hill again with the Boy the sun was that much lower and we could really feel the difference in temperature.

Shades of grey

On the way back down from the bus-stop after a short shopping-trip. I liked the smudgy colours in the sky and the smudgy shapes in the snow.

One last bit of festivity

The decorations are coming down tomorrow so just one last pic of the festive stuff.

Meanwhile, Outside it's still baltic.

Pizza and puff pastry

A scene of cosy domesticity as Miss Mouse makes her pizza.

And the puff pastry? Well, that's what the lopsided domes of snow on the flower-pots remind me of.

Whisky-sodden

The cake that is. Heavy boozing at Hogmanay (or indeed at all) is not my thing so I escape oh-so-smugly the annual two-day New Year hangover of Scottish tradition. Which lets me enjoy indulging in a nice slice of whisky-sodden Christmas cake. Mmmmmmmm.