Merry Christmas One and All

Another late night here,just made sure Santa enjoyed the cookies and whiskey that Lara left for him next to our chimney. Rudolph should be tucking into his carrot too now. Santa did leave a stocking full of treats for a good little girl. We've not packed the car up yet, ready to drive up to Radcliffe, but me and the boys are pretty much ready to go, so the pressure will be on the girls in the morning, but Olga's good at speed-packing. Our aim is to be in Radcliffe by 12.30, ready for Grandma's usual perfect Christmas dinner at 1.30ish, then watching the Queen at 3pm before nodding off at 3.11pm. Someone needs to tell Lara and Elizabeth that that's the plan, or Nick, Cath, Olga and I will have to take it in turns to be "on duty" to look after the little ones.
Anyway, now that I can hear Santa's sledge pulling away from our roof, it's time for bed. Merry Christmas, anyone who's reading this.

Disaster Movie?

This was the scene at 11am this morning on the main road leading to our street. It reminded me of a Hollywood film where the town had been attacked with some kind of nerve agent and everyone had slumped dead at the wheel of their car!
We definitely made the right decision to dump the car yesterday, and I was able to get to work quite easily once I'd collected it. I'll park it there again tonight, as I doubt this main road will be clear anytime soon.
Here are some more pics:

LOTS more snow

Where's the car?

We were almost caught out today by another big dump of snow this afternoon. In Marlow, it didn't look too bad, with sleet falling from lunchtime, and only turning to proper fluffy snow around 3pm. The nursery closed early, at 4pm, so we picked Lara up just before that and set off home. However, the fluffy stuff had been falling in High Wycombe for longer than in Marlow, and the main road near our house - which is on a steep hill - had become almost impassable. We only found this out once we'd parked the car up at the end of a quiet cul-de-sac that I know, after being stuck in traffic for 30 minutes, moving less than 50 metres. With another mile or so to go, and with Lara waking from a nap, and hungry, we decided it was better to leave the car and walk home, so we detoured to the street where we've left the car. I could go and try and get it now, but it's not causing any obstruction and frankly, I don't think we'll need it until tomorrow lunchtime at the earliest. It's still snowing now - 10.20pm - albeit not as hard as before, and it's good snow for building snowmen, so I reckon that's tomorrow's priority, building a "no-man" as Lara calls them.
I was reading the BBC News website this evening and found this paragraph:
"People have reported major traffic problems in the High Wycombe area of Buckinghamshire, with some vehicles being abandoned."
I guess, technically, we have abandoned our vehicle too, but I can agree that I saw lots of vehicles abandoned on the main road near our house; I took the dogs out for a walk as soon as we got home, mainy so I could go and see what was causing the traffic problems. Cars coming down the hill (the direction we needed to go) we having to wait for cars coming up the hill to turn around, as they were getting stuck halfway up. I must say that everyone was very polite, in the 20 minutes or so that I was watching, I only heard one car horn beep, and there were local residents wandering about with shovels, helping cars to get some traction. I'm sure we made the right decision, and it'll be interesting to see how many cars were finally left on that road.
At least this new snow will give Lara a chance to try out the new salopettes we bought for her at the weekend. Mainly they're for her trip to Russia, and it was proving difficult to find such trousers for a two-year old, and an "only-just" two-year old at that, but a winter sports shop in Reading had what we needed (and in the sale too!). They're very pink, but they fit her and will keep her warm and dry while she plays in the snow.
And finally, on a wintery, Christmassy note, I took this photo on my phone while walking the dogs the other night - our most over-decorated house in the neighbourhood: