Mouse 3 - 0 Us. That's it!

Yep, he's done it again.  Mr Mouse (yesterday) managed to eat the chocolate coin off the traps but left unscathed, again!  Last night we smeared peanut butter on the traps.  Surely he can't lick it off the trap without getting caught we thought.  Oh yes he can.  Peanut butter gone.  Traps still open.  He's obviously laughing at us now!

I had a sykpe call from Yahoo today who showed how lovely our old bird table looks in her garden.  

You can see it if you look really hard.

She also thinks the only reason the mice are coming into our house is because we keep putting food on the traps.  Ummmm that's an interesting one.  Huffle has decided he's not putting anything on the traps to see what happens next.  My guess is he'll start eating the door!

Grandma skyped me too to let us know she has booked the flights for her and Grandad in April.  We looked online to see what the weather would be like then and it looks like highs of 11* and lows of 1* - pretty much like the UK weather now then (apart from the last couple of nights where they have had minus figures)!

Without Moo here I had to get the boys ready for school on my own.  Easy peasy, they were ready in plenty of time except that it took so long to get all their stuff on (it was -11 today) that they only just made it in time for the bus.  Whoops.  The drive was so icy.  The rain from yesterday had turned to ice and then it snowed on top of that.  Treacherous!  Huffle had trouble getting off the drive.  I put salt down but have no idea how much to use.

I spent the day all by myself.  I rearranged the loft.  Put away craft stuff.  Sorted the airing cupboard.  Put away the washing.  Swept the floors.  Made some Fish Cakes.  Cleaned the bathroom.  And then I looked at the clock and it was 2pm.  I skyped Moo.  She was tired after a very long flight that was luckily on time but had to circle in the air for ages.  How annoying.  We had all of our UK post redirected to her address so we spent a while looking at post, her opening it, me saying bin it, keep it, send it etc..  She has already started to look for flights to come back in June.

Before long it was time for the boys to come home.

I checked the drive - still slippy.  So put more salt down.  Hopefully Huffle will get on and off a bit easier now.

Small and Smallest were happy to receive post again today.  Both had letters from their friends back home.

They wrote their letters back to them and drew them some pictures.

Small had his Survive to Swim again today.  He enjoyed it but on the diving board he did two bombs and a bellyflop - ouch.  He thought the bellyflop was fun!  He also learnt to roll into the water, he tried to tread water for ten minutes but struggled to do the whole time.  He also did something called 'elementary' (he thinks that is what it's called), on your back, breaststroke legs butterfly arms - demonstrated by lying on the chair - wish I had photographed that one!

We have just been invited to a Beef Dinner (not good when you are vegetarian!) for the Winter festival here in the hamlet in February.  Have to decide and let them know.  Smallest also has a kids party on that day.

Huffle and I watched another episode of 'The Hotel' - so very funny.  Why do these people let themselves be filmed?

My lovely friend who inspired me to write a blog in the first place saw my post where I moaned about the plastic bit that kept the bread bag tied and sent me these pictures

Ingenuous - thanks Mrs Jumble

 

 N.b.  Hello to my new reader 'Secret Squirl' - glad you like the picture of Moo and the snowboards.

 

That's it, I'm hibernating

The forecast for today said it was going to be -12.  Huffle went off to work with his snow boots on.  Moo and I decided to take the kids to the local town.  We put our thermals and boots on.  Small wore his new scarf that I finished knitting last night but forgot his hat - silly boy - his ears nearly fell off!!

When we went out to the car it was -15.  Now that is cold.  Moo forgot her thermal bottoms - silly Moo, her legs nearly fell off!!  As we were driving along it went to -16 and then -17.  We marched around the town trying to get warm.  It was sooooo cold our faces stung and Moo thought her nostrils had frozen solid!!

After walking along the Main Street and half way back, we got warm in the Thrifty shop where we bought Small a Balaclava.  The boys bought themselves a HotWheels Truck and I bought a teapot - this time one that pours - Moo said we needed to get it checked before we bought it this time.  Very clever.  I also picked up some napkins which I will adorn with buttons or embroidery or suchlike when I am bored!  

We got nice and warm and then went outside again.  It seemed even colder.  The boys had their scarves tied around their faces.

Keep warm little bear

So we went to the local cafe and had toasted bagels with cream cheese and coffee.  The boys wrote some notes to their friends back home and then when we were nice and warm again, we went back outside to the Post Office.  I'm sure it was colder still!  We bought some stamps and the boys posted their letters (and mine).

Ooh lovely warm bagels

Concentrating in their letter writing

Posting their letters

We couldn't stand the cold any longer so we got in the car, warmed up, drove to the supermarket, got out, got cold, bought some stuff for dinner.  While I was in the supermarket, I stopped a lady who worked there and said "excuse me, could you tell me where the Golden Syrup is please". She smiled a huge wide smile and said in a voice not dissimilar to Dick van Dyke in Mary Poppins "of course I can show you where the golden syrup is". I looked at her and wondered if she was all there and then laughed and said "are you trying to do my accent?". She laughed, put her arm around me and said "yes sorry, I'm not very good at it though".

Then we got back in the car, got warm, got out of the car, got cold, put the shopping away and the boys played on the wii.

Moo and I then set about making Small's curtains for his bedroom.  We cheated a bit by using iron on Stitchery Witchery but we still had to measure, pin, iron, fold, pin, measure.  Actually Moo did most of it while I made the dinner.  When she had finished we went up and put them on the curtain poles.  The first one looked great.  The second one we put on upside down but then the right way looked much better.

We asked Small to go into his bedroom to fetch something (he didn't know we'd done them) and he didn't notice, so we asked him to fetch something from his desk (which is right in front of his window - he didn't notice.  So I said "careful of the window" at which point he looked at the window and went oh yeah, look, brilliant, thanks.  They look really cool.

Small's room (only problem now is that nothing else goes with the curtains!)

If you look really closely you can see Huffle's face and mine.  Oh alright then I'll show you.......

Huffle

Me

Now Smallest wants his done too.  We have the material, we just need to find an afternoon to do them.

Huffle came home and told us that the windchill made it feel -10 colder.  But that's -27.  No-one said it would be this cold did they?  When we came to look at the house in October we wore shorts!

The sump pump wasn't working today - or it was working but it was on constantly.  The pipe outside had frozen and there was a leak and it was just pumping and pumping so Mr Fix-it sorted it with a Mop Bucket!  Don't ask!

Moo and I also broke the wardrobe that sits in the basement.  To be fair the back was falling off anyway, but Moo pushed something in too far and the back fell off and then I tried to get some tins out and I pushed them through the back, buts it okay, Mr Fix-it can sort it I'm sure.

We sat watching Doc Martin on the TV (TV is rubbish here if I've not mentioned it before) when I suddenly heard a kind of ringing.  We all jumped up.  Moo went to pick up the phone.  I went to run down to the basement thinking it was the water alarm and Huffle stood there and said "isn't it just the dishwasher rattling?". 

Oh we are silly.  Must be the cold, it's got in our heads.