What a Christmas!
First of all we had over a foot of beautiful fluffy snow. As we all know a dusting of snow can bring the UK to a standstill, well the DC area can be chaos during a bit of rain so a foot of snow sent everybody into shock and they cancelled flights for most of the region. As I was due to fly on Saturday from Reagan National to Philadelphia and then on to Heathrow to visit Mum, Kitty & Ben and Judy, Amy & Paul, this was a bit of a bind; so whilst the snow fell gently on the ground I spent several hours trying to get through to the airline to rebook the flight and change the UK hire car booking. Even though all the flights to the UK were booked until Christmas I eventually managed to get on a standby list for the Sunday but there was no guarantee I wouldn't get stranded at Philadelphia. In the end I didn't fly to the UK which turned out was a good thing as the flight back on Christmas Eve was also cancelled due to the bad weather in Europe.
At least the time off gave me the opportunity to shovel some snow from the drive (with the help of able seaman King) and halfway across the road to get to the one track the locals had made with their urban tractors. Unfortunately this meant I had to clear the ice caused by the melting snow which froze overnight on the drive and footpath despite the salt I distributed liberally. Most of the roads apart from those in our area had been cleared so we were left to fend for ourselves; fortunately our ice driving skills are up to par.
On the plus side the snow was a great opportunity to take some beautiful photographs, teach Helen how to make a snowman and be at home to meet Jerry our house-guest for Christmas. The snowbunny took a lot of patience as the snow was very dry so we had to wait a day or so but the results were brilliant and was the sole snow-based life-form in the neighbourhood until a classically made snowman appeared along the street.
Now onto Jerry the ferret; what a cute, inquisitive independent little furball! Ferrets sleep for up to twenty hours a day, but make up for it in the hours they are awake. Jerry managed to open the cupboard doors and climb in, continually try and get inside the sofa, steal one of my presents and patrol the entire house from top to bottom looking for anything interesting to get into.
To finish this entry off we had another minor flood Boxing Day evening as the rain started and all the snow melted. Luckily all of the pumps were functioning but we investigated an odd noise coming from the basement and noticed that some leaves were blocking the drain to the pump; emergency averted!
First of all we had over a foot of beautiful fluffy snow. As we all know a dusting of snow can bring the UK to a standstill, well the DC area can be chaos during a bit of rain so a foot of snow sent everybody into shock and they cancelled flights for most of the region. As I was due to fly on Saturday from Reagan National to Philadelphia and then on to Heathrow to visit Mum, Kitty & Ben and Judy, Amy & Paul, this was a bit of a bind; so whilst the snow fell gently on the ground I spent several hours trying to get through to the airline to rebook the flight and change the UK hire car booking. Even though all the flights to the UK were booked until Christmas I eventually managed to get on a standby list for the Sunday but there was no guarantee I wouldn't get stranded at Philadelphia. In the end I didn't fly to the UK which turned out was a good thing as the flight back on Christmas Eve was also cancelled due to the bad weather in Europe.
At least the time off gave me the opportunity to shovel some snow from the drive (with the help of able seaman King) and halfway across the road to get to the one track the locals had made with their urban tractors. Unfortunately this meant I had to clear the ice caused by the melting snow which froze overnight on the drive and footpath despite the salt I distributed liberally. Most of the roads apart from those in our area had been cleared so we were left to fend for ourselves; fortunately our ice driving skills are up to par.On the plus side the snow was a great opportunity to take some beautiful photographs, teach Helen how to make a snowman and be at home to meet Jerry our house-guest for Christmas. The snowbunny took a lot of patience as the snow was very dry so we had to wait a day or so but the results were brilliant and was the sole snow-based life-form in the neighbourhood until a classically made snowman appeared along the street.
Now onto Jerry the ferret; what a cute, inquisitive independent little furball! Ferrets sleep for up to twenty hours a day, but make up for it in the hours they are awake. Jerry managed to open the cupboard doors and climb in, continually try and get inside the sofa, steal one of my presents and patrol the entire house from top to bottom looking for anything interesting to get into.To finish this entry off we had another minor flood Boxing Day evening as the rain started and all the snow melted. Luckily all of the pumps were functioning but we investigated an odd noise coming from the basement and noticed that some leaves were blocking the drain to the pump; emergency averted!
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