Warm Weather Prognosis from Tom’s & Douglas’s Barns

What is the secret? You’ll have to wait and see how effective it turns out to be…

The icy conditions persist. We have had no snow recently, and none the night before last in spite of warnings and dire predictions of what was to befall. However, the old snow is still with us. Each day it starts to thaw slowly, then each night freezes hard again so conditions underfoot tend to be perilous and the drive not much better but everyone seems to be getting in and out so it’s obviously not that awful.

John and i have not exactly been skipping abut on the snow (unlike the lovely Springer Tweed whose photos we shared on Facebook) the other day but we are certainly teetering out a little more confidently, all thanks to some very effective Ice and Snow Grippers that daughter Ruthie gave us both for Christmas. There are various types around but these are the best we’ve seen, metal studs fitted onto a rubberised thing that slips over your boot or shoe (and very easy to put on and take off).

So impressed with how effective they are we have today ordered a couple of pairs for each barn so that our guests will be able to use them while they were here. And we’ve also bought some traction treads to put under any car or delivery van that gets stuck round us as I did the other day in the doctors’ surgery. To digress for the moment I would like to add a public thanks to Peter R and his granddaughter, Amy, who pushed me out of the frozen mounds of snow I was caught in on the surgery car park. Without them I might be there still.

So now we await the arrival of our snow aids. I’m not sure whether to be pleased or disappointed if it means that as soon as they arrive we find absolutely no need for them at all.