Late night Sunday rush

Today is the last day of halfterm, so I've been frantically been getting on with bits and pieces, before the hecticness of tomorrow sets in again.

Plans were slightly put on hold when we got up to see that this had happened - 4 inches of snow overnight - and no forecast of any such thing happening!

Photos taken at 10 am this morning.


By 10 am, there were 4 inches of snow in the drive - which yesterday had been absolutely clear!!
After a leisurely walk up to the shop to get some milk, and a call in at the café, I got on with finishing my red and white challenge quilt. For some reason, I didn't have enough cut for the border, so I need to get on with that next weekend.

Not a good photo, I'm afraid - Mr Z&Z was only willing to hold this up on the landing, and some random clothing appears to have crept into shot in the bottom right hand corner. It has tunred out to be pretty big - some of the other participants were commenting that they had found it to be too small. Perhaps we in the UK just have smaller beds and bedrooms?

I also got on with cutting up the bargain jelly roll that I picked up two weeks ago. So far I've made 110 4-patch blocks with it - and that's it.... It's going to go to a friend's daughter when (if) it's completed.

I offered my sister my trip around the world quilt from yesterday as a birthday present - she has alas declined it. I hope to see her next weekend, and will hopefully persuade her that it would look fabulous in her house. It's part of my campaign to persude her that homemade doesn't always mean that things have to look as though they've just been cobbled together.....

Another Day at Home

Well, so much for no more posts until I get back...

School was cancelled again today - and (excuse me while I have a rant) I'm getting fed up of people saying on the radio / in the papers that when they were at school in 1992 / 1963 / 1947 / whenever, that they walked to school following a snow plough, or that the drifts were over 5 foot deep but school still opened.

Society has moved on. It's changed. Staff and students commute much further to school than they ever used to - and they can't get there without public transport.

Our school has shut today because safety can't be guaranteed - you only have to watch the news to see that as a nation we're running out of grit and salt - so you can pretty much assume that what's left is being used to keep roads and hospitals open - not necessarily schools.


End of rant.

So, after I'd emailed work to all my students, this is what I did with my day:

built a (quite small) snowman - but it was jolly cold out there

... and my assistant kept complaining about the cold.
and made three blocks for my SBS:

I'm not wildly happy with them - but hey - I bought the fabric a year ago, and have putting off getting started - no idea why!! It could have been that all the blocks I've seen on others poeple's blogs and galleries look so much more delicious than mine!! The only problem is that the Handy Andy is too small - even though it was foundation pieced. It's about 5.5 inches instead of 6.5.

Somehow I can reset the printer to print it correctly- but I can't figure it out. I know that there's a book coming out later this year with the patterns in - maybe I should leave the foundation pieced ones until then.

Only another 117 blocks to go...

But now I've started, I'm itching to crack on with the next one.....

but I can't
because
I'm going to quilt camp
NOW!!!!!!!!!

SNOW!!!!

Well, after much excitement, the snow arrived.

And stayed.

All day.

This is what the garden looked like from above:

and at ground level:

Just to prove that it was really really deep:

(Yes, oh cynical friends of mine - that does show 6 inches of snow - so no, I wasn't making it all up....)

And why doesn't the snow fall through the slats on the picnic table???




So, even though school is open again tomorrow, I can't get there by car, as I'm still snowed in, so it's on with the boots tomorrow, up with the walking poles, and a brisk hike up the hill to catch the bus.


On a brighter note, I got some sewing done - just about finished the border on a quilt top - but am 6 inches short of plain black and none to be found in the house - grrrr.


And I started my very first block for SBS - Handy Andy - finally!!!!!!


Got half way through paper piecing it - it's the wrong size.


Yep - I printed it out too small, and so it's going to end up 5.5 inches across, instead of 6.5.

My own fault - but I've enjoyed doing it, and hopefully will attempt the full size one later this week.

Yes? No? Yes? No?

The weather forecast said that today would bring the worst snow seen in the UK for 5 / 10 / 18 years - depending on what you were listening to / reading /watching.

But I - cynically - thought that this was probably some scaremongering, and that there may well be some flurries - so no need to take any extra precautions.

Well - it's been snowing all day - and those of us ho didn't go dressed suitably ...

.. were very cold. And narrowly avoided falling over at work. Several times. I KNEW I should have put boots on today...

My journey home took 90 minutes, as opposed to 10 - which isn't bad when I hear what other people were up to. I did okay until I came to descend the final hill - where the kids were toboganning in the middle of the road - you can't really blame them, I suppose - and at the bottom I turned into our road. I edged along it very cautiously - I should have known that this was a tricky area in snow when we bought the house - there's a gritting box at the end of the road - I tried to turn into the drive and EEEEKK spun round and about, coming to a halt right across the road.

Nothing else for it - hazard lights on, and a quick dash (in MOST unsuitable shoes - serves me right) to get Jim to push me out of the road and into the drive - there was just TOO MUCH SNOW to get the car into my own drive.

I counld't really have a go at Jim for not clearing a path - it simply hadn't occured to him - and besides which, he'd gone on a shopping expedition this morning at about 8 am, thinking, as I did, that this was just another fus about a miniscule amount of snow. The nearest supermarket is about 30 minutes walk away - and so you can imagine that when he came out, laden with the groceries, to find that it was snowing heavily - it was a bit of a shock (You wouldn't think that he had grown up in Glasgow and so should be used to the cold and the snow).

So now it's a question of waiting to see whether school is open or not tomorrow - I should know by 10pm tonight...

And if you're reading this in a location where snow is normal in winter - well, in the UK, we pretty well shut down when it snows. The whole country does. It just happens. Every year. I lived in Germany from 1989-1990, and I remember being quite surprised when it snowed heavily - and everyday life just kept on as usual....