This week I have mainly been eating out. I have been lucky enough to have a Christmas do to go to every evening, Wednesday to Saturday. I even had two on Wednesday! I can highly recommend The Hurcules at Sutton Cheney [click HERE for the website] and The Gelsmore at Griffydam [click HERE for the website. Beware the site is slow to load.]. This has curtailed my festive preparation. I did, however, get a chance to taste my air dried Ham. It is best cut wafer thin. It is melt in the mouth moist and salty.
Saturday morning was the only time I had for the lottie this week because I was going up to Manchester. I did the trailer early. Degsy started quite easily even being stood for a week in the cold. There was ice on the inside of the roof and it never melted whilst I was out and about. The car said the air temperature was -2 at 10am. Cold then. I went back to the lottie. The place was crispy white with the air Gin clear. I cut down a couple of stalks of Sprouts, dug up half a dozen Parsnips and a dozen Leeks. All the veg were frozen solid. The surface of the soil was frozen about an inch and half deep. It just broke like a crust on a pie. Even dressed for the weather, hat included, I could still feel Jack Frost nipping my ears. Whilst I was fettling about I opened the compo bin to accept the trimmings off the veg. When my back was turned the Robin's moved in. They were like brown and red tennis balls hopping around. When I left the bin they were in that. When I left the soil to clean off the veg they were in there. The Dunnock and Wren were also rummaging about. I did not have much time to spend so packed up Degsy with the goodies, wished the lottie and birds a Merry Christmas and came away.
I ran H up to the cheese shop/bakers at Staunton Harold. It is a new addition to the courtyard. The owner is best suited to baking but his cheeses and bread are smashing.
It was an uneventful drive up to Manchester but that cannot be said for the drive back. It snowed overnight in the city. Just a couple of inches but on top of the previous days thaw which had then frozen it was a slippy combination. I had to run across to the other side of the city to collect H and Miss L. It was just a series of really heavy snow showers for about twenty minutes then a little respite and then another white-out snow shower. Not fun on the motorway. We set off from Manchester a little after 1pm and got caught in an extended snow shower. Within minutes the snow was a couple of inches thick on the motorway. Luckily folks kept moving which kept the lanes clear-ish. There are some folks that have no business being out in poor driving conditions. There were lots of terrified faces peering out of the windshields. When we got as far as mid Cheshire the clouds parted, the Sun shone and the roads cleared of snow and cars and it was a clear run home. As we picked up the Ashby sign H said "its nice to be home".
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