Tomorrow it will be just 2 weeks since I did any shopping. We haven’t actually been snowed in all that time but it certainly feels like it. We’ve probably been unable to get out for about 9 days.

Once the heavy snow stopped we made several heroic attempts at digging down the drive to the lane. When we finally got there on Monday afternoon, we wished we hadn’t bothered. It was much worse than it looked from the house. Even the main road at the end hadn’t been gritted.

So here we still are, managing to exist on a non-existant store cupboard. Yesterday we even resorted to making some soup and bread from very old ‘back-of-the-cupboard’ ingredients.

Some of the pipes froze a couple of days ago and we had no water upstairs, fortunately that seems to have sorted itself out now. The night time temperatures have been as low as  -18c, is it any wonder the pipes froze!

I am amazed how the birds survive in these conditions, yet survive they do. Each morning when I get up, my first job is to feed them. They hop and fly about, seemingly without a care in the world. They are truly awesome.

No more unusual visitors to report, though the pheasants have been more in evidence than usual. No more squirrel sightings, one armed or otherwise.