White Magic

As I am sitting thinking about my past week white seems to crop up time and time again. Monday morning arrived with the prettiest dusting of white over fields and trees. Little did we know that by lunch time it would be a thick duvet of white everywhere. B&A were delighted that by midday school had called time and two very excited children and a very excited dog were let loose to run through the magic carpet that had appeared. Me? Well you have to join in with the odd snowball and snow angel don't you - it would be rude not to!The afternoon passed with shrieks of laughter and hours of freezing cold fun out in the orchard building snowmen, sledging down over the paddock and attacking Bumble with an endless stream of snowballs, poor thing still hasn't quite worked out why these balls just seem to disappear when they hit the ground which had us rolling with laughter.
The paddock is now a perfect sledging slope but when we arrived at the Bungalow the paddock was shouting out for a few sheep to munch away at it's long grass and although it seems to have taken forever we have finally found some sheep and are planning to collect them on Wednesday. The three girls are Wiltshire Horn ewes which look great and they don't need shearing, all they need is a good scratching post to rub off the old fleece which the children will love collecting. These girls are last years lambs who were the smallest or the last born of triplets so they have had lots of hand rearing but they are still small. So Abi will be in charge of giving them endless attention and petting and lots of sheep nuts - just up her street. The girls have all be given names, Flossie, Goaty and Runty, however Abi is far from impressed with Runty so she has renamed her "Baby" - very PC!!So snow, sheep and then my landy which got a good wash last week for me to discover that it really is white. Although washing it wasn't the best idea as I managed to flood the garage at the same time, gosh I am getting good at this multitasking!! The result of my endeavors was the discovery that no drains around here seem to work as I frantically grabbed a broom and tried brushing the water away from the garage door. My actions were fruitless no amount of brushing was going to disperse the volume of water I had used so we had a garage under an inch of water with Christmas decorations floating around it and now we have our very own ice rink - splendid.The only other white I came across is really quite distressing, let me explain. Friday we are supposed to fly to Finland for a snowy holiday on a frozen lake - weather permitting of course! Our holidays here are just magical, Finland is so beautiful. We stay in an idylic log cabin with a log fire and wood burning sauna, it's so relaxing and we have so much time just being together as a family, hiking across the frozen lake, cross country skiing and watching for reindeer - quite perfect. But there is a down side, the time had come to venture into the loft and retrieve the ski wear. I hate this part of the preparations, jackets, gloves and the worst one of all, the trousers. Now my dread is because no matter how much running or how little I eat I am just not the right shape for this unfair item of clothing. So year after year I drag the blessed things out of the loft and transform myself into a walking, talking michelin woman! With a white jacket, greyish trousers and fuddubadas a plenty the cursed character appears.
So with this in mind I heave a sigh, flick on the kettle and open another bar of chocolate.....well it's too late for this year and brown is the new white!