Friday, January 15, 2016

Five on Friday - A Chilly Week


Hello and happy Friday to you all! I'm joining Amy again for her Five on Friday get together. I find it a great way to just share a few ordinary things that aren't really interesting enough on their own to be blog-worthy LOL. It seems that there is connection with my five things though - the weather seems to play a part in all of it! This morning we had our first few snowflakes fall over Devon. How exciting - we were not expecting it at all, in fact I had finally accepted that my snow days might very well be over not that we live in the South West. It didn't settle of course but that didn't bother us at all - we were just happy to watch it tumbling down from the sky :) (small pleasures).

1

It's been a much chillier week this week - and I'm glad for it :) I know it sounds strange but I really enjoy winter to feel like winter. We've woken up to some breathtaking scenery, this picture was taken from an upstairs window in our home, isn't it just beautiful?



2

With the drastic drop in temperature I've had the perfect excuse to have my C/H on, so all my washing is up to date too! I was having a gripe to my husband about struggling to keep up with the laundry and getting it dry before someone runs out of underwear or socks or a clean shirt LOL (I don't have nor want a tumble dryer) his response was, 'I guess it's a problem that everyone who lives in the Northern Hemisphere must face at this time of the year. Of course he is quite right and it put my 'problem' in perspective. I'm not the only one struggling to get laundry dry this time of the year :)


Today we woke up to ice. Lots and lots of ice. We had quite a hard frost this morning which made me very happy - I threw a coat over my PJ's and went out into the garden to get some frosty photo's and just to relish hearing the crunch of frozen earth under my feet. It's one of my favourite 'winter' things.





Of course it wasn't all wonderful. DH couldn't get his car out of the drive this  morning. We live at the bottom of a rather steep road and all the rain from the showers last night seemed to have collected in our cul-de-sac and frozen solid. His car was slipping and sliding all over the place. We ended up taking buckets and buckets of hot water outside to melt the ice off the streets surface so he could get out. Which brings me to number 3.



3.





Needless to say that we were clearly caught unprepared for icy roads. I think that we were lulled into a false sense of security with all the mild weather we had in December. But we resolved to remedy our lack of preparedness, especially in light of the fact that temperatures are going to drop below freezing again tonight, and bought a few containers of Ezi-Melt. My youngest has dancing tomorrow morning and so we will need to get the car out of the drive.



4.





I have steered clear of decorating my home this month. I usually add a few winter related things here and there but after having just cleared the house of Christmas decorations, I'm quite enjoying the streamlined mantle and spaces around my home. I did however happen across this little cross stitched pillow I made two years ago. I had almost forgotten about it. This little Red Cardinal is just so cheery that I had to find a windowsill for him to adorn. I quite like seeing him and his snowman friend every time I go up or come down the staircase.



5.



And speaking of birds, our feeder has been a flurry of activity with this freezing weather kicking in. Today we spotted all the usual folk as wells as a small flock of European Goldfinch ...


 Picture Credit: My DD Jessica-Laine :)
and some rather feisty Black caps. I watched this little one chasing away a Blue Tit so that he could gobble up all the seed :)

Picture Credit: My DD Jessica-Laine :)
So there we have it, my five weather related things from this week.




 As I wrap up this post the wintry showers have passed and sunshine has been streaming into my dining-room and kitchen, so much so that I noticed how dirty the windows were! I can't tell you how it annoyed me so outside I went and cleaned all the downstairs windows LOL. Now I can say that 'happily' the sunshine is pouring through my CLEAN windows :)



Anyhoo, have a wonderful weekend everybody, keep warm (or cool if you are in the Southern Hemisphere) and I'll see you all next week.

11 comments:

  1. Our house seems fairly good at holding on to heat so I'm able to have the heating on for short bursts for drying. Definitely makes things easier doesn't it. I hate that time of year, often in Autumn, where it's not cold enough to put the heating on but things take days to dry outside on the line (especially if you forget to bring them in and it rains...!)

    Love your bird photos. We don't have a large variety of birds in our garden, we get lots of jackdaws which I think scares the smaller ones away. We have a couple of fat wood pigeons who enjoy the feeders :)

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  2. The temperatures really have dropped haven't they. We have all been lulled into a false sense of security with all the mild weather, I would imagine a lot of people got caught out with the frost/ice.

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  3. Hi, love your photos and agree that winter is supposed to be cold! I always visit the other "Shirleys" I find in Blog land, as the name isn't so popular. Hope you have a wonderful weekend!

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  4. It is so lovely to see the sun coming in isn't it, it makes a world of difference to how we feel - and to drying laundry! I hope that your deicer will help and avoid you having to take out hot water to defrost things again, that can't be fun. Love your little winter decoration! Thank you for joining Five On Friday! Happy Weekend! xx

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  5. We've finally gotten some wintery weather here in Pennsylvania. I hope you can stop by:

    http://collettaskitchensink.blogspot.com/2016/01/tea-time-steelers-and-puppy-11516.html

    Colletta

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  6. Oh a lovely five, I was totally unprepared for the weather this morning too. That is a stunning picture and hooray for clean windows, especially at this time of the year xx

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  7. A bit of frost here this week, but no ice. Love the pillow.

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  8. There's nothing like sunshine streaming through dirty windows to motivate the cleaning. Last Saturday I did the inside and my husband did the outside. Ahhhh.
    The first photo with the fog hanging in drifts in the valley is really lovely. Have a happy weekend.

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  9. This is a lovely Five! I hope you were able to get to the dance lesson without any problems and that this weekend's weather has been kind to you. We are desperate to see some snow here in Shropshire! x

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  10. Cold with a side of Daffodils. I'll take it! Definitely cold here, but no sign of spring flowers except in the shops. I'll have to enjoy the pics of people of the UK where spring seems to be arriving already!

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  11. Hello Shirley. I'm catching up on what you did last week. (Somehow I missed this Five on Friday post). The mild weather lulled us into a false sense that it would continue. Although the weather forecast was for change to what is normal for this time of the year, it still came as a surprise. I hope that if it's still icy in Devon you're coping as you go out and about. Your DD has taken some lovely bird pictures. I love your cross stitched pillow.

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