New Year

Daniel and Julie arrived safely and we had a lovely time with them in the midst of which Neil and Dave came over, cleared the drive and pulled the 307 up to the road, all in a few minutes! What great neighbours!

We 'townies' have learnt our lesson and at the first warning of snow in the future will leave the cars at the top of the drive as the roads have on the whole not been too bad and it has been possible to get into Inverness once out of the drive. Richard however, went to Dulnain Bridge today and said that the road there hadn't been cleared and the snow was about 10 in deep so it was quite an experience. A 4x4 is definately on the shopping list!!

Whilst we have experienced just how dark it can be here with the lack of light pollution, it has been exceptionally light here this week with the combination of full moon and reflection off the snow meaning that there have been similar light levels to those we would normally see at dusk, even quite late at night. Added to which we witnessed an unusual (to us at least) phenomenon with a circle appearing around the moon similar to the appearance when a drop of detergent is dropped into a bowl of greasy water.

The snow has continued to fall and is about 2ft deep although thaws slightly intermittently and has caused an unforseen problem. The roof and walls are leaking seriously in about six places. We have no idea what has happened as the roof was looked at only a couple of months ago. It seems likely that the weight of snow in the gutters is stopping any of the melted water from draining away and that it is tracking into the walls and into the roof space. As the entire house is dry lined it is impossible to see what is going on but we have someone from the insurance company coming on Monday to have a look. In the meantime we put out an increasing number of bowls, buckets and towels

and are planning to decamp to the guest room tonight just in case the dining room ceiling (underneath our bedroom) collapses as it is beginning to sag.

I am currently incapacitated by problems with my back, possibly brought on by trudging about in knee deep snow so am frustrated at not being able to do very much at the moment. We didn't go out to celebrate Hogmanay but 'Our gang' of friends from Sutton phoned just before midnight to wish us a happy new year and me happy birthday and the family piled upstairs to join me where we opened a bottle of bubbly.

Hopefully things will improve soon as we are looking forward to Elodie coming up on Monday and Tim and Ruth and the children on Saturday.