January '15

Gotta keep warm

Did someone suggest a snowball fight?

Feshie in the Snow

This morning Dad and I took Mum to Feshie to see the cairns. It had snowed a bit overnight so they were looking particularly cool with their little covering. I also took the opportunity to work on another of the 50 things to do before you're 11 and 3/4 and skimmed a stone or two on the river. That took a *lot* of practice but I did manage it in the end! And I was able to throw some snow. So in this one location (admittedly over two days) I've climbed a tree, thrown snow, skimmed a stone and balanced on a fallen tree. It would also be true to say that very near here I've been geocaching, although that was another time (but it is one of the 50 things!).

Here are some more pictures...

Winter Walk

A week before Christmas and it's time for our annual walk, whether we want to or not. It was a beautiful but freezing day which resulted in only one of us falling on the ice once. I don't want to give away who it was but it wasn't Mummy or Daddy.

We had a nice walk to and around a local pond managing to collect a couple of local geocaches that had eluded us until now too! There was plenty ice to keep us amused; even the old folks seemed to enjoy breaking ice, although they did get a bit fed up with me when I wouldn't leave one large puddle and come home for some hot chocolate!

Daddy took a few pictures while we were out. He's got a fancy gadget on his phone for taking photos that look almost as old as Mummy and he uses this as a way to cover up his lack of talent and then displays the photos to anyone passing. And anyone reading this blog post...

Beecraigs Geocaching

The holidays have been mostly spent indoors. Our plans to go north were scuppered by Mummy getting flu and Grandpa having a fall (get well soon, Grandpa!) and apparently there was no plan B. Luckily, Daddy has bought an XBox 360 so that's filled far too many an hour!

Today, Mummy is feeling a lot better and insisted we go out for a walk in the cold. So off to Beecraigs Loch we headed for a nice stroll and attempt to collect a geocache or two in the area. It didn't seem to matter how much I asked to go to the park at Beecraigs Country Park, The Folks were having none of it and just drove straight to the Loch for a walk with no swings, roundabouts or chutes.


The lack of park didn't matter in the end though. I had loads of fun. Mummy and me looked for lots of interesting things to bring home and the Loch was almost completely frozen over!









We did find one geocache. We were lucky as a few days ago it would have been completely covered in snow! There was a second cache but although we knew where it was, we couldn't find it. It's a tiny one and before we could track it down, some people approached. Geocaching is a secret game and you're not supposed to draw attention to caches so we left. We watched the people though and they were cachers too! They went straight to where we were looking and started looking for the cache too! We'll just have to get it next time we're there.

Snow

I don't think a description of our weather will shock anyone - the whole country has been buried in snow.

Daddy and I were out on the first day for a bit of sledging (sans camera so no evidence but we had a really great time).

Mummy has been out a *lot* shoveling to keep the street clear while Daddy has been "working from home". I don't know how much work he's actually done but it's made a fine excuse to keep him from shoveling with the rest of the neighbours!

He was in Birmingham for work the first Monday and Tuesday of the snow and luckily made it home via train, monorail, plane (to Glasgow rather than Edinburgh), bus, train, bus, digging his car out and driving home. He arrived home at 02:30, about 4.5 hours later than expected. Nothing was going to stop him from attempting to build an igloo for me the next day!

Daddy did pop out to try to get some photographic evidence of the situation. I didn't go with him so there are no photos of me for your viewing pleasure, but the snow has been just too deep for me to get through at times! I did enjoy many days off school and days at school being pulled home on the sledge by Daddy! I could really get used to having this much snow about!

You call that thawing?!

Daddy says there's been a lot of thawing today. I'm not sure why he thinks that since *everything* is still covered in snow. But apparently the benefit of the temperature today is that the snow is finally fit for good snowman building and snowball making!

So the order of this morning was a nice snowman (with icicles for arms!):

And the order of this afternoon was a snowball fight. I made Mummy and Daddy build me a wall of snow to hide behind and then since I didn't like the idea of it being knocked down by Daddy I stood in front of it with the sledge and defended it. I took a lot of hits because Daddy was so good at throwing but the wall stayed up! Then Daddy got too tired to play on so I destroyed the wall!!!

Snow fun with a friend

My best friend, Ciarn, came to play today. We have only seen each other a couple of times since leaving nursery so it's great when we're able to get together. We mostly played computer games when he was here but we did go out and play in the snow for a while. We went to our usual sledging hill (not the new one where Daddy turned me into a snow cloud) but the snow was so deep it was very difficult to do any serious sledging. We still managed to do a bit though and had fun. Afterward we went back home and played in the garden with some light sabers icicles that Daddy managed to get for us.

More Sledging

We had more snow fall last night. And it's just too cold during the day for any of it to melt. So it was out for a bit more sledging again today. It's a wee trek to our new sledging hill - a rather large and steep one, but it's worth it.

First I had a wee go with Mummy. Mummy and Daddy say this hill is too fast for me to go down by myself. If I don't stop at the bottom then it'll be straight into the river with me. It was great fun with Mummy - nice and fast and straight and she made sure I was OK.

Then it was downhill with Daddy. He was in a hurry from the start and frankly made a right pig's ear of the whole event. He went too fast and then had trouble stopping and with all the snow his boots threw up we couldn't see a thing and ended up dangerously close to a tree and FREEZING cold. I demanded we go home right away and I'm never going out in the snow again. Because it'll take forever for me to warm up after that. You can't even see me behind the wall of snow in this picture but I am there. Honest.

Still Snowing

We had more snow today. Here's Daddy helping through some of the worst of it on our walk:

I think it needs to stop and go away soon. We're cooped up at home and if we don't see some other folk soon then I can see a change in my living conditions. I'll either be seeing Daddy at weekends only, or worse, just during visiting hours (hospital or prison, not really sure which).

Frozen Veg

Since the snow stopped for a bit this afternoon, Daddy and I went outside to play in it for a wee while. We played in the undisturbed snow in out back garden - it's not undisturbed any more! It took some digging, but we discovered that Mummy has been growing frozen brussels sprouts.

There were also some frozen carrots but they weren't big enough for our requirements so one was retrieved from the fridge!

Stir Crazy

It started snowing here 2 weeks ago and it's still snowing now. Thankfully it has stopped occasionally (not like Granny's - don't think we'll be seeing her before summer with all the snow she's got), but we've been stuck inside a lot. And since some of my best Christmas presents were Lego, we've managed to build almost all my Lego (only pieces left are the pieces without instructions).

Daddy wouldn't let me play with it until it was all built but he promised we can play with it now that it's all complete. He's going to be the baddies (robbers, Indiana Jones baddies, storm troopers and Power Miners) and I'll be the goodies (police, firemen, coast guard, Indiana Jones et al and rock monsters). We'll split the remaining pieces evenly (in such a way that I have the most and the best ones!). It's taken several days to build, I wonder just how long it'll take for The Great Battle to reduce it to single pieces again?!

Sledging

There's been excellent snowfall the past few days but Daddy has been feeling a bit ill with what he calls 'Man Flu'. Thankfully he was feeling a bit better this afternoon and we were able to go out with the sledge for a while and have loads of fun. Luckily Daddy was feeling strong enough to pull the sledge to the top of the hill every time for me!

We were sledging in several places nearby, one place in particular was quite steep and if you're not really careful you're likely to fall of the sledge...

Rather then being sympathetic, Mummy found it very funny. But I soon got payback!

I hope everyone else is having as much fun in the snow.

Snow

I guess most folk reading this (if you're in the UK) will have enjoyed a tremendous amount of snow recently. Well we haven't. And I don't think I've ever seen Mummy so disappointed (which is really saying a lot). We had a nice 2 or 3 inches of it on Monday with both Mummy and Daddy being sent home from work to save them from being stranded but then there's been nothing more than a couple of dustings since while the rest of the UK have had *loads* of it.

Luckily, Daddy, having sneaked away early from work on Monday came and picked me up from nursery and we did a bit of sledging, built a snowman and had a massive snowball fight (which was particularly good when Mummy joined us). It was really funny when Daddy, having suited up in all his fancy waterproof clothing and walking boots came into the house when we were finished and while waxing lyrical about how dry and warm he still was, took his hat off (which Mummy had hit once or twice with a snowball) and dropped lots of snow down the back of his neck!

It's been just as well we made the best of it on Monday afternoon though as there's been no snow since. Daddy and I even managed to get the car washed yesterday.

Sledging at last

Although it's been extremely cold for a while (minus 7 when we were up north last week), we haven't had any real snow. Plenty frost, but no snow. Until today. There was just enough snow and it stayed just long enough to finally get the sledge out. I don't know who was more excited, Daddy or me! He initially didn't think there was enough to go sledging proper and it was late after nursery and dark, but Mummy wasn't home yet so Daddy and I nipped out to the back garden with the sledge. To begin with, Daddy just pulled me around the garden, then he decided to go check out the wee hill beside the nursery... And it still had snow! We were still sledging there when Mummy came to find us and all three of us played there for half an hour - Daddy still in his work shoes and shirt!

We had loads of fun and can't wait for the next fall of snow to do it again. Here's a wee picture of me in the sledge, still in the cold wet clothes after we got home. We didn't have the camera with us at the time but it was probably too dark for any photos anyway.

Happy Easter

We had a fabulous Easter Weekend. On Saturday we went to Newburgh to the Fife Rabbit Rescue. Mummy wants to get a couple of rabbits and I can't wait to play with them. They had a lot of rabbits there, some baby ones and one very large one - it was almost as big as the two dogs they had and the lady said it hadn't finished growing.

We then went up to see Granny and Grandpa in Kingussie and they had prepared some snow for our arrival. There was only a little but it was more than enough for Daddy to make a snowman and for us all to have a snowball fight! It was really good to see Granny and Grandpa and got even better on Sunday when we got up because more snow had fallen overnight! We went for a long walk in the snow and then came back to thaw out and dry off!

On Monday, Mummy had to work but I had the day off nursery and Daddy had the day off work. We went to Asda and then went to see Grandad in Lochgelly (Gran was working too). The three of us went to Beveridge park and played on the climbing frames and with the little diggers. The diggers are a bit big and heavy for me yet but Daddy says he wants to get one for the garden. I think that must be for me to practice on.

Unfortunately it was back to nursery on Tuesday. I always make a little fuss about going to nursery. I'd really rather stay at home with Mummy and Daddy. But, do you know what? I always really enjoy it. I have some great mates there that actually have the stamina to play with me all day. And they don't have to wash dishes and stuff either. I was invited to Lauren's birthday party but unfortunately I'm already going to a birthday party on the same day. I've been invited to loads of birthday parties around the same time - and mustn't forget mine! I can't wait. I have to try to remember to be good and do as I'm told though, as Mummy has a tedancy to threaten to cancel it...

Stay happy, everyone.
Edan.