So...Lots of Snow

Lots of snow indeed over the last eight days. It tickled me at one point when I looked at CNN and found that the UK's snow "issues" were suddenly headline news in the US. Weird. It's always seemed rather unfair to me that when it snows here everyone lines up to moan that we can't cope. Of course we can't cope. Because it rarely snows in England more than a light dusting. So we're not used to it. The transport systems aren't used to it. We don't have the equipment and logistics in place. It's not what we do. England is outstanding at many things, but snow isn't one of them. So? I don't expect colder parts of the world would cope well with a sudden heatwave either. Kudos to those essential workers here who carried on regardless....for everyone else, who cares if there are some days off? Sounds like a healthy excuse to have some fun for once.

We certainly had fun in the snow, although a heavy dose of yukky cold in the middle of the week meant we unfortunately had to cancel a visit to friends. Snowy pictures from various points in the week, from barely there dusting to full on fluffy white stuff, in assorted stages of unsuitable clothing!










In the middle of the week, a letter arrived from the grammar school in Gainsborough, giving the dates for the 11+ exams and open days etc and wanting a signed confirmation that Emily would be doing the exams. Oh yes. It had all seemed such a good idea until that point. Reading it in black and white was a different matter and a horrid, horrid feeling. We had A Serious Family Talk. Emily had been worried that she wouldn't be able to follow her chosen career with taking exams and that to take those exams she'd have to go to secondary school. She's worrying far ahead of her years, of course, but all credit to her for taking her future so seriously. Duly reassured that there are ways and means of accomplishing just about anything without the S-word, she was adamant that she didn't want to go to school and we were adamant that we didn't want to send her. So that was that. She's not going, but we are going to seriously look into alternative routes towards various qualifications when she's a little bit older.

Meanwhile, Emily made some beautiful beeswax candles to celebrate Imbolc, which we burned with our dinner that evening. Although we had to miss seeing friends mid week, we did see Hazel and her girls on Friday, which was good. Emily's been busy texting and phoning Mei Lin and Jasmine like mad, since they were away last week. It was Jasmine's 14th birthday on Wednesday..... !!!! 14!! Where are the years going??

This morning Emily came back from karate as pleased as punch because she'd asked George, on the spur of the moment, about kickboxing classes and he'd said she could join the ladies class rather than the kids class. That's on Monday evenings, so it's a bit of a logistical hiccup since Jon always goes to psychic circle on Monday nights and Emily always goes with him so she can play with Mei Lin and Jasmine while the adults are doing their stuff. Turns out though that Jon can just drop Emily off at kickboxing, go on to Jacki's and start the circle and then George will bring Emily back to theirs when they pack up after the class, so she still gets to play with her friends. Looks like Emily will also be going to the Tuesday kickboxing class in the village, so that's All Good.

What else? There's been lots of wii-ing in the cold evenings; I confess to being unhealthily addicted to Super Mario Galaxy and Emily and Jon love racing people from around the world in Mario Kart. We're still failing to watch any TV that is actually on at the time, lol, but we've been watching various DVDs. As a family we've watched The Waterhorse, Independence Day and X Files: I Want To Believe, the latter much anticipated now that Emily has finally watched every episode ever made (!). The assortment of films prompted much discussion over film ratings, with Emily wanting to know why the X Files film was a certificate 15 as opposed to a 12 (largely due to its references to paedophilia and some fairly strong medical horror). By the way, the British Board of Film Classification has a great site, with a children's section where kids can review/classify trailers and see if they match the official decision and on the main site it gives very detailed information about the whys and wherefores of recent classification decisions.

Meanwhile, Jon and I have been ploughing through some late night DVDs, notably Cold Blood starring Matthew Kelly and John Hannah - I only really knew Matthew Kelly from Game for a Laugh and Stars in their Eyes, but he was absolutely superb as the serial killer in this. We also watched the latest series of Wire in the Blood and now we're on more Robson Green with Touching Evil (although I preferred Wire in the Blood).

On the 6th Feb it was our 12th wedding anniversary :-)) Emily made us Cream Cheese Brownies for a treat, which were absolutely superb!