A weekend of firsts... and they are all about...

...SNOW!

It finally arrived last night, I was following the weather on www.theweathernetwork.com earlier in the day having heard a forecast of 15-25cm of snow due yesterday afternoon on the radio. The website said 2-4cm so we shelved our plans to rush out and get some proper winter boots. As it turns out the weathernetwork site was about as accurate as Michael Fish and the radio had under-estimated the amount of snow that was on the way! So I dug out my Doctor Marten's boot and at 6pm off we went for a walk in the snow pulling Ellie and Thomas on a sledge (a first!). There was only about 4cm, but it was fun.
By the time we got home it was starting to chuck it down so we built a snow man (another first!). All the snow we used up to make him was easily replaced by the time we went to bed and still it came. This morning we awoke after our first proper snow storm to find 30-35cm of snow outside. I'd been shovelling nearly an hour when MC brought the kids out, Tom sat on the bottom step for about 30 seconds, stood up, fell over and acquired his first black-eye and it's a beauty, looks like he's been boxing. He may have done it on purpose of course (in collusion with Ellie), once he was settled an hour later, Ellie was put in charge and they settled in front of the television while MC and I went to complete the shovelling. Ellie, good as ever, came to ask if they could have a biscuit, then she came to ask if they could have a second biscuit... Then we went in the house to find Thomas covered in chocolate and half of the biscuits were gone. I paid for this when I changed his nappy this evening...
It took three and a half hours to clear the snow from the drive... I'd almost finished when the snow plough came by and dumped a new load in our entrance, LOL.
After a hearty lunch of whatever we could get our hands on the fridge, Thomas was bundled off to bed to rest his closed up eye and Ellie and I got wrapped up and set off with our two-man, sledge. We found plenty of virgin snow on the school's grounds behind our house including some excellent, steep slopes running down onto the football pitch. The first run was very successful, having struggled back up the hill, I had to return to the bottom to carry Ellie up... Upon arriving at the top I heard the gentle "SSSsssssshhhhhhhhhhwwwwoooooooosssssshhhhhh" of the sledge departing down the hill without either of us aboard. Fortunately thereafter, Ellie found her snow feet and we trudge up the hill many times to ride back down. Each time we became increasing wet and increasingly covered in snow... What a great time...
This is the view from our back window at the moment...
And this is our garden...