Mum is doing better, it appears that it was a blood clot in her leg coupled with a virus that had spread to her heart.  She is undergoing some tests (or may have by now) so I will know more when I call her tonight.  I tried to call her this morning but she's never in her room!  I think she's using every opportunity to go out for a walk in the hospital grounds with Dad.

MUM

I got a phone call tonight from my brother.

Mum is in hospital, it appears that she suffered a heart attack around 4am Sydney time and is now in Westmead hospital.

I don't know any more than that at this stage.

I am just beside myself, I feel helpless being so far away.

Heaven's Gate

On the weekend we caught up with our friends Chris and Ros.  We met them at Heaven's Gate, a nice walk which overlooks Longleat.  After our walk we went to a local pub for lunch and all important chatter.  I got to have lots of cuddles with baby Tristan, who had discovered a really fun game of dropping his toys on the floor for daddy Chris or uncle Andrew to pick up.  Hours of fun.  After lunch we went to Nunney and visited Gran at the nursing home, she is looking forward to getting the plaster off her ankle in a few weeks' time.

Baby Tristan getting a ride on his dad's back.  Tristan is 6 months old and was all toothy smiles and giggles during our walk.  He loved posing for the camera.

View over Longleat as we were hiking down the hill.  It was so eerie being able to hear the Longleat lions roaring off in the distance.

Ros, Chris, Tristan & Andrew

We saw these shells on our walk and couldn't work out why they were there as we were nowhere near the ocean.  Then we realized, they were the leftovers from dinner for the seals at Longleat.

The pub at Corsley Heath where we stopped for lunch after our walk.

Next day we had a lovely sleep-in before going to watch our nephew Zack play soccer, his team won 2-0, Zack scored one of the goals.  He had a really good game and attacked the ball well.  We went back to Helen and Paul's place for dinner, then Helen went off to a church meeting and Andrew went to the cinema with Andy and Darren to see Daybreakers.  I'm not into vampire movies so I stayed at Helen and Paul's to play some games with Zack.

Zack scoring a goal.  Look at how tiny the goalkeeper is!

In other not-so-exciting news, I finally have an iron and an ironing board!  I got my first pay last week so I was able to afford them, as well as some new Kilner storage jars for the kitchen.

This is just the start of my collection, I want another two of each size (except the butter dish).  Now I need some labels so I don't forget what I've put into the jars.  For now, I'll have to do Mum's old trick of tearing the label from the flour packet and pop it inside the jar with the flour.

Aren't they pretty!

How boring my life must seem

If I have nothing more interesting to post about than my new linen bins.  Whoop tee doo!!

I wish I had some exciting news to tell you, but there is nothing to tell really.

Andrew's gran had a fall three weeks ago and broke her ankle, she is okay though.  Her leg is in a cast and she is as comfortable as can be under the circumstances.  I drove to Nunney to see her today, then I did a bit of shopping on the way home.

It has been so cold recently that the radiator in our room just doesn't heat efficiently enough, so I had to buy a convector heater from the hardware store.  If that doesn't help then all hope is lost!  I think it will do though.  We are in the middle of winter now, the daylight hours are getting longer, so it shouldn't be too long before we'll be switching the heating off.

Andrew has a three day weekend coming up this weekend, I think we might be catching up with Chris, Ros and their baby boy Tristan.  If the weather is fine I am guessing we'll be making the most of it and going on a walk somewhere.  We'll also go and see Gran as Andrew hasn't seen her in weeks because of the terrible cold he had.

Getting organized

Things are slowly coming together in the house, we don't have a great deal of money to spend on household "stuff" but I found these handy linen bins with pine frames at the local hardware store for 6.99 each.  I have one for light clothes, one for dark clothes, one for "farm" clothes and one for towels & linen.

So much nicer than just piling the clothes on the floor in the kitchen! I still don't own a laundry basket though.  Or a clothes line... or an ironing board...  or an iron...  but we manage hehehe :-)

Two days late

The snow, that is.

I woke up this morning to a fresh blanket of snow, we must have had about 2 inches on average.  It was so lovely to see the snowflakes clinging to the hedges and branches in such a delicate and fragile way.  On my little venture outdoors today I took some photos of animal tracks I noticed in the snow out the front of our house:

Penguin tracks.  I wish!

Fox tracks (left).  I know for a fact that these were left by a fox because I actually saw the little bugger late last night as I was staring out of the lounge room window!  Not sure about the smaller tracks on the right, possibly a cat?

Badgers on skis???

I have absolutely no idea what caused this but it freaked me out.  I actually thought someone was playing a practical joke.  There is a whole trail of these going right across the yard.  Can anyone give me a reasonable explanation for these bizarre "tracks"?  I thought maybe there were some sticks laying in the snow and someone had picked them up (why, I would have to ask!) but there were no footprints around.

Creepy.

This tree with the berries is the same one I cut some foliage from to decorate the fireplace for Christmas.

Andrew watching me prowl around the garden.

Jack barking at me as usual.  He loves going for walks in the snow with his owner Charlie.  They were out playing with one of the many squeaky toys Jack owns.

My poor little vegetable plots, barren and cold.

I would have dragged Andrew outdoors for a walk this morning as it is his weekend off at the moment, but he is still trying to overcome a horrible cold.  Instead, I whipped him into submission and he helped me tidy up the house.  We had some music to keep us motivated and it was a rather productive day.

Not sure what we'll do tomorrow, Andrew toyed with the idea of going to see our nephew Zack and join in with some snow activities but I really don't think it's a good idea for Andrew to be larking about outdoors.  We'll see how we feel in the morning.

More to come

The forecast is for more snow today (Sunday) and tomorrow.  In fact, it is starting to snow lightly as I type.  The snow we have had is still here but it has melted away a little.  I love being able to see the snow but it does have its downside - the roads are becoming too icy for me to drive, so I can't get into town to buy some groceries and I won't be able to get to work tomorrow.

I will post some more photos shortly, still waking up and I want some breakfast.

-3 celsius

Today's forecast was for all day sunshine so I was dying to go outdoors and go for a walk.  Andrew was home sick with a bad cold so I headed off on my own for a bit of adventure.

Small natural lake outside the village.

A lonely tree.

Sheep grazing up on Fontmell Down (strange that a hill is called a down, considering that I had to walk UP it to take this pic!)

Looking down over the village of Compton Abbas.

Umm...  a dead plant (sorry, don't know the species but looks similar to Fennel?  Suse, what do you think?)

Looking back up the track as I head back down into our village

Looking back toward the village and the Blackmore Vale in the background

Our house is almost smack bang in the centre of this photo (row of three cottages, just above the dark hedge but below the farm buildings).  If you want a better view, click on the photo and it should open a larger image.

More snow

Remains of 15th century Saxon church - we can see this from our bedroom window too

Wintery scene inside the Saxon church graveyard

Gravestone in Saxon church yard

Our house (not all of it - just the right half)

Village post box

Front of our house

House in the village with an interesting topiary tree

Converted church in the village

One of several thatched cottages

'The Old Reading Room' - I think this used to be a school house at one time

Baa Ram Ewe - some very obliging sheep who patiently posed for me.  One of them even came up for a scratch on the head.  They like to eat snow too!

Laneway through the village

I have fallen in love with English houses.  Can you see why??

Can't remember what these mushroomy things are called, or what they are supposedly for.

Resident snow man.

Christmas gifts

Tray from our neighbour Charlie; glasses & ice cream scoop from Andrew's sister & her family; egg cups from our friend Daz aka freaky boy!

Mr J gave me the complete DVD set of Gavin & Stacey

Chocolates, port, gourmet cheeses and chutneys

A toy cow Helen bought for Andrew in Budapest

Weeeeeeee!

We did extremely well for Christmas.  Because people knew that we didn't have alot of practical things for our home, we got some great stuff.  I am really pleased with the tray and the ice cream scoop, I was only thinking a couple of weeks ago that I would like to buy these things.

The chocolates were well received and didn't last long (hanging my head in shame).

I've got a job!

Starting yesterday, I have a part time job as a milk sampler.  Basically I have 5 or more dairy farms to visit twice each month (once in the afternoon, then once the following morning), I have to collect a sample of milk from each cow during milking and write down how many litres of milk each cow is producing.  The milk samples get sorted and sent away for testing to find out how much fat & protein is in each sample.

I have done this job before in Australia, although on a much larger scale.  The farms I'm visiting have around 100-120 cows, so it is small and manageable, and each visit to the farm only takes around 2 hours.

The money isn't alot, but it is a real help to us as it will cover 1/2 of the food bill each week or fill up the car and give me a little bit extra cash to buy things for the house.  The job isn't my ideal but it's better than nothing and at least it means we have more money coming in until I can find something more suitable.

Andrew & I are heading to Dartmoor for 3 nights' stay at a cottage which we are sharing with some friends.  I am hoping for some sunny weather so we can go out hiking and take some nice photos.  The forecast is for possible snow for the south west of England, that would be fantastic too!

Merry Christmas

Real snow!

We had a surprise visit from a group of carollers last night, including Andrew's boss' wife Denise.  If I had known that the village had organized to go carolling I would have joined them (not that I like Christmas carols, it would just have been a nice way to make some friends).  After they'd been through the village they stopped in for mulled wine and mince pies at The Old Forge B&B.

I actually went looking for the group after they left our house but they had completely disappeared and despite following their tracks in the snow I couldn't find them.  I was so upset to have missed out and really disappointed that I hadn't been invited.  So to cheer me up, Andrew took me for a walk after dinner so we could go look at the Christmas lights and walk around the village.

Local villagers at our front door singing Christmas carols to raise money for charity.

The only house in the village that had gone to any real effort to decorate.

Our driveway and house from the road.

Shaftesbury high street (church is on my left).

Shaftesbury Abbey overlooking Blackmore Vale.