We had a small amount of snow fall on New Years Day here in Ossett, which stayed put for 4 days since the temperature did not really get above 0 degrees Celsius.  In fact, on Monday morning, Simon set out to work and it was -4.5 degrees at home and when passing by Manchester he noted that it was actually -8 degrees near Bury !!!

Today, Simon set off for work at 6:20 am (ish) and got to the Yorkshire side of Manchester effortlessly, then found that the snow levels rose from almost none at all to 6 inches in the right hand lane of the motorway and 4 inches on the other two lanes…  There were just three sets of tracks in the snow, and when Simon heard a news bulletin from Leeds suggesting people had begun abandoning cars, he decided to turn back.  So, it took 2 hours and 40 minutes to go precisely NOWHERE.

To top it off, the bin lorry had got stuck on our street so Simon had to leave the car 100 yards form the house.

It is now lunchtime and the snow has not stopped and there is almost 6 inches on the walls / fences / gazebos and people’s driveways.

Vicky had to go food shopping armed with a warm coat and a sledge.  The sledge was to bring the provisions home, not to go hooning around on the slopes… 🙂

It looks like this will be set in for some time – so Elliot’s first day at school may actually NOT be tomorrow after all – the local schools are all closed 🙁

We spent yesterday in Halifax @ Grandma’s house, with Auntie Jenny, Uncle Justin, Uncle Dan, Uncle Tiggy, Great Grandma and Great Grandpa, Great Auntie Mary and of course Grandma and Bernhard.  Father Christmas had apparently taken a wrong turn and had actually left some gifts behind there for Elliot and Oliver.  There was a significant quantity of goodies waiting for the boys – enough to fill the boot of the 7 series…

Elliot finally managed to go to sleep @ 01:30 this morning and poor Oliver was [projectile variant] sick last night at 23:30 last night.  So all, in all, another pretty poor night last night – Elliot then didn’t get his lazy butt out of bed until 11:30 this morning!!! Elly, Olly and mummy declined to bother getting out of their pj’s at all day today – nice!  Olly still isn’t eating particularly well unfortunately

We have cleared all of the Christmas decorations away inside the house, and taken the non Disney decorations to Grandmas – they are being stored @ Greenlea while we are away.  The Disney stuff will be shipped over to CA when we go.  The only stuff tat still needs to be done is the icicle lights around the front of the house need to be taken down.

The lounge feels massive again 🙂

We are actually considering selling Fork Hall – we have an estate agent coming around on Monday to value the place.  We met with the mortgage company a couple of days ago to figure out what options we have – i.e. can we rent it out – answer = yes, just need to get official paperwork through – can we get a mortgage holiday – answer – not sure – will find out soon.

Finally, it started to snow again tonight – it has been snowing now for just over an hour and a half and there is almost 2 inches of snow on the ground 🙂  Let’s see what tomorrow brings….

*Lost some of the blog* – apologies

… badly with British Gas NOT showing up, and then when we chased them the people in the service centre told us that the engineer was late and the parts were sorted – the engineer who turned up however stated that there were no parts and that he would not know what they required until he saw for himself 🙁  A call back to the service centre got them to accept that they had not been truthful when they told us the parts were in the van ready to rock and roll.

Anyway, it turns out that the guy who actually came to check it out is a local guy and his experience is to keep a good supply of the parts for the sort of boiler that the new houses in Ossett have – GREAT news.  The hot water is now COMPLETELY FIXED – Yay !!! 🙂

Daddy and Olly nipped into town to get their photos taken for the passports (daddy requires a replacement and Olly just needs one) and have had Olly’s countersigned – thanks Guy – appreciate it – particularly given you guys all have the lurgy :-(.  We will queue tomorrow at the Post Office to get the on a fast track to get them sorted ASAP.

Elly was showing mummy just how to play Mario Kart Wii today – daddy got some video footage as it was very funny seeing mummy go from not caring about the game to really wanting to WIN !!!!

We have a vacation to California booked – we will be travelling out on the 22nd Febraru and returning on the 10th March – we will spend one week in Santa Clara to localte house etc, and then one week down in LA to spend time with the mouse and his mates – courtesy of DisneyLand LA 🙂

Ace – looking forward to this trip……

Just been putting the photo’s onto the computer so here is Elly and Olly’s snowman that daddy and Elly built on Christmas Eve.  Shame that he is almost the only snow left in the garden now – just three days later 🙁

Check it out when the most was here…..

We forgot to mention yesterday – the hot water is not functioning presently here in Fork Hall – it (typically) broke on Christmas Day in the morning – so no warm showers for anyone :-(.  British Gas came out yesterday (it took Vicky to give them a bollocking as they originally suggested Monday – 4 full days after the reported break down – I don’t think so ..>!!!) and it is deemed that the sensors are broken and (of course) the parts need to be ordered and cannot get here until Tuesday…… Brrr. cold washes in the basins until then then….  Fortunately the heating is A-OK 🙂

We are enjoying a day in the house relaxing doing nothing other than playing with new toys 🙂