…Sledges, snow shovels, road salt and mince pies

Today we bought two new plastic sledges for the use of our guests and/or rather less excitingly for pulling luggage up to the house if that becomes necessary again. Determined not to be caught out next time round we also purchased a new snow shovel – our last one is now in London having been urged upon son Nick when he left here in heavy snow over a fortnight ago – and some road salt. This comes in fairly minutes 20kg bags – heavy to carry, expensive to buy and somewhat ineffective on the snow and ice – but considerably better than nothing!

We’ve also ordered some mince pies from Riverford Organic just in case the Aga and I can’t keep up with the demand, and one or two new Christmassy candles and decoration etc for the barns.

But more importantly,  we need a weather update, particularly for those of you planning to arrive here on Friday…

It has been much warmer, and drizzly and wet the last two days. There is very little snow about, apart from heaps at the side of the road in some places, and pockets of white on the hillsides where the snow has settled in the dips and furrows or banked up under stone walls.

We seem to be hearing a little less of the dramatic talk of an ‘Arctic blast’ bringing heavy snow that was being loudly proclaimed  last week. There is talk now of rain turning to sleet and possibly snow on Thursday but we haven’t had any general weather warnings (or that we’ve heard, anyway). If you are at all concerned, keep looking at the BBC weather for Ashbourne.