Full Metal Wheelbarrow

Had my first trip to the zoo this year on Thursday. The nice people at the zoo offered me a renewal of my yearly pass at lastyear's rate, which was very nice of them , I thought, especially as it now includes entry to some other zoos as well.

It was exceedingly cold, so it's a good thing that although there are many monkeys at Twycross, none of them are brass ones…

( Pictures in here... )

So, it might have snowed a bit last night...

I checked the main road at our usual departure time this morning and it looked a bit dodgy, so Rob suggested we waited for it to get light at about 8 o'clock and then have another look. So we did. If anything, it looked worse.

I was reluctant to risk driving him in to work, not so much because we might get stuck on the way in, as because I might get stuck on the way back and be unable to come and fetch him later. Also, he was supposed to be having Christmas dinner with some of his colleagues at a pub in  a nearby village at lunchtime and I wasn't at all confident about the road out there being clear either. So today is a snow day. Bah.

Rob spent much of the morning industriously sweeping away the snow to make a path for the van to get out if we ever have anywhere to get out to. It seems to have been a good idea as the snow actually seems to be melting a bit where he swept and with any luck it won't be compacted ice there when it freezes overnight.
I toddled down into the village  later to get a few things and took some pictures on the way.

Yesterday the snow was fading away. Today it was definitely back.

( Snow joke... )

It was rather frosty today, so we toddled out to try and get some pictures of things with frost on :-)

edith_jones said the other day that grass wasn't supposed to be green at this time of year, so here's some proof for her that the grass in these parts does turn white sometimes. OK, it's with frost, rather than snow, but still...


( Frosty things )

Happy New Year Everybody. Let's hope 2009 is an improvement on 2008, at least.

Meanwhile, back on the boiler front...

We phoned the emergency number taped to the boiler. No problem, said the nice friendly lady on the phone. We have good coverage in your area, there should be someone out to you within a couple of hours. "Yay!" we cried, muted somewhat by the £129 per hour plus VAT and materials they were planning to charge us for the privilege of having the company of their engineer on New Year's Day. Then the depot rang us back and told us there was no-one available until Monday. NIce Cheeful Lady had been either Greatly Mistaken or Lying Through Her Nice Cheerful Teeth. Bah.

So Rob visited the British Gas website where they proclaim that they will come and mend your boiler for a flat fee of £168. Under the circumstances this looked reasonably attractive so we phoned them. The gentleman on the phone said they don't do that offer any more (so why is it still on the website then? Bah.) but we could sign up and pay £2 a month and £127 call out fee and someone would come and fix the boiler tomorrow afternoon. Since there were icicles beginning to form on our noses at this point we have accepted this kind offer, and will be waiting in between 12 and 6 tomorrow for the nice lady or gentleman to come and give us some heating back.

In the meantime, we at least have one oil-filled radiator, so we shouldn't freeze entirely.

In order to better appreciate the warmth we do have, we went out for a walk in the frost. Pictures will follow shortly, if I can make LJ behave sufficiently.

The boiler is sulking again. And although the pressure was low and we've repressurised the system it doesn't seem to have helped this time.

Drat and double drat.