Snow and Welsh cakes

Well, we've had more snow and everything looks lovely.  I quite like the look of the garden at the moment - we can pretend that under the soft piles of snow are all our lovely shrubs and plants waiting 'til Spring to do their thing and look marvellous . . . . instead of weeds, mud and building rubbish!  Apparently, on Friday M&S actually closed early because of the weather and on Saturday we were able to leave very quickly after closing time instead of staying for an hour to tidy shelves, etc.  Most of the roads are fine, it's just the little lanes that are a problem - my Manager hasn't been home for days because he can't get his car up the lanes.

More progress on the lounge (apart from pointing) - we have taken out half the ceiling and so can now see right up to the roof.  Last time we could do that you could also see the rafters and even the sky above!  We took down the plasterboard and rearranged the loft boards above and then took out the joists.  Yesterday, Bob set to to cut through the wall plate the joists were attached to and cut off the bolts we'd epoxyed into the walls.  As he was doing the last one, the one right next to all the cables in the wall, it started smoking - of all the ones to do that, that was not the one you'd choose (it would be a tad annoying to set fire to the wiring!).  We suppose that the epoxy had got really hot from the angle-grinding.  With a spot of quick thinking, Bob dashed outside, grabbed a handful of snow and stuck that onto the wall to cool it - handy.

Welsh cakes cooking on the woodburner.  Honestly, I
scrubbed it just before, but it looks awful
on this photo - well-used you could say!

On Sunday we had a bit of a lazy day - we weren't even up and dressed until about 11am!  We then went into the workshop to play with Bob's new toy.  He has bought a pillar drill and it needed putting together.  It's a big, heavy old thing, so it took two of us to do it.  Through the woodyard we use, he got to know about a chap who deals in second-hand workshop tools, mostly from the days when they were really solid, well-built and made to last.  So this drill is from the early '90s, but is actually brand new and still has its protective film on.  In the afternoon we lit the woodburner and I made welsh cakes for with our cuppa.  Really nice cooked straight on the top of the woodburner. On Sunday I also started typing up the old diary I found and the first instalment is over there, on the right, at the top, under 'Pages'. I got up early today to type this and now, at 7am, I am about to put a loaf of bread in the oven.  How impressive is that?   Actually, don't be too impressed, Bob made the dough last night, so I've only had to shape it and leave it for an hour - not too difficult.  Bob has been making our bread regularly for the last few weeks and I think we've only bought a loaf twice this year!  I am off today, so I'll give you three guesses what I'm going to be doing . . . .