Starting the season

We kick off this weekend with snowdrop walks.  Picking a date in the autumn seems so straightforward but as the time approaches it becomes a case of will they/won't they?    Each year snowdrop flowers peak at a different time and in early January it looked as if they would be very late indeed following our December brush with the arctic.  We chose the same weekend as last year when we were only just in time.

But now, like a miracle, they have caught up and are coming into flower, just in time.   Some on the northerly sheltered slopes are still coming out, but the displays are there to cheer us up despite the grey Shropshire weather.

We are open on Saturday and Sunday afternoons (1.30-4pm), serving teas in the Victorian kitchens until 5pm.   The kitchens rely for heat largely on the old kitchen range which was lit today for the first time in weeks and we held our breath to see whether it would smoke out the room.  To everyone's relief the smoke went straight up - and out - of the chimney.  My dream is one day to restore the range and see it working properly again - with the price of oil it might even become economical to use.

So, keeping fingers crossed for a fine(ish) weekend, a warm welcome awaits you ....

Lights on!

Joy! - the new - that is to say new to the Hall - lights are finally in situ and well worth the wait.  They have actually come from a London church that has been stripped of its fittings,  rather wonderfully, a church that was built by the builder of Stokesay Court - John  Derby Allcroft.   A kind and thoughtful person seeing that they were about to be abandoned, rescued them, and brought them back.   It feels a bit as if they have come home and it's already hard to remember what they have replaced.

Contrast this with the frustration of my new fridge/freezer.   Bought from Currys at New Year to replace one with a freezer door that wouldn't seal any longer, it only works intermittently.   After many calls to those numbers which ask you to choose from endless options and state clearly what it is you have bought, I got through to a person, and was then visited by an engineer.  Who informed me it works perfectly.   The small print in the instruction manual states that the appliance must be installed in a room with an ambient temperature over 10 degrees.  Ha Ha!   In Stokesay's kitchen the temperature in winter drops below 10 degrees as soon as the heating goes off.

Some yorkshire puddings may have frozen and defrosted over and over again and have been thrown out.   It could have been worse.  As they say, it's a known unknown.

Unfortunately Curry's doesn't accept that it isn't fit for purpose.   It's all my fault, they say, I should have read the instruction manual before purchasing it  and it isn't their responsibility to inform customers of this particular problem.  And no, they will not exchange it as it is working properly.   When I asked them what I should do with it, they suggested asking the Council to come and take it away!!   But it's new, I said.....

So it seems I am expected to heat the kitchen to warm up the fridge, or get rid of the appliance and buy another one.  Why does Alice at the Mad Hatter's Tea party spring to mind?

And yes, I could and should not give up at this point - but complaining is draining, and I've decided I need to conserve my energy for happier things. 

Like the wonderful lights which put it all in perspective.

Say hello to the Postman

I'm trying to think charitable thoughts about our local postal service but they don't come easily and I hope I will be forgiven for those thoughts that spring unwanted into my mind.

In the early days of the big freeze before Christmas the postman came regularly and the sight of his van was one of the reassuring signs that we were not  cut off from the outside world.   I confidently ordered Christmas presents online for delivery before Christmas.  Then one day he didn't appear, nor the following day.   Rumours went round the village:  deliveries had failed to arrive at the local sorting office; Health and Safety had forbidden the postmen to venture out.   Older members of the community said it was the first time in over 40 years the post hadn't been delivered.   The sorting office was closed at 1pm and all staff sent home so we couldn't go there to collect when we realised no-one was coming.  The last rumour I heard before I left for the family Christmas visit was that the decision whether to deliver had been left up to the postal workers themselves.

Now the post has been delivered here for far longer than I have been in residence and it has never let us down before, except when the postal workers have been on strike.  In the past the postman has extolled the engineering of the postal vans which he said could get almost anywhere in all weather.   He finally did arrive before Christmas, but after I had already left, and the thought of all that mail (and the presents) waiting for me was heartbreaking.

Post has been arriving intermittently ever since while I suspect a big catch-up has been taking place.   The extended holiday no doubt added to the backlog.   Just as I thought we were getting back to normal, I woke up on Friday morning to find several inches of snow on the ground again - and guess what - no post, despite the fact that it was thawing hard by 3pm (the time at which he has started arriving).   All of my wonderful helpers arrived here without mishap as they have done throughout the freeze and not all in 4 x 4s.   An 80 year old has been up and down the drive every day.  

But not the postman!   In the post which finally arrived at around 4pm on Saturday is a letter forwarded to me from a Bank dated mid December and sent to the wrong person at the wrong address.   It bears the dread words "Please provide the information requested in the next 25 days.  .....   If I do not hear from you within the 25 days I will assume that you no longer require the amendment and the case will be closed."

Please Bank, keep the case open!    Freezing weather, a two week Christmas break, and wrongly addressed mail which then gets held up in the post is not a formula to get the New Year off to a good start.   I shall console myself by watching those DVDs I had planned to give away.


Update Tuesday morning:   after several hours frantic telephoning yesterday I am pleased to say that the Bank has agreed to keep the case open while I attempt to assemble the forest of documentation I am required to submit to them.

coping with the big freeze

The forecasters say the temperature went down to minus 20 in the next door county last night and I can feel the cold air through the windows as it starts to drop again.  The trees are covered in snow and it is perilously icy everywhere.  Stopping pipes freezing is the main challenge - the washing machine is out of action for the third time since the weather turned cold in November and won't work again until the thaw sets in.

This is how it looks.

Time to hibernate, and there's very little to distract me from sitting down in front of the woodburning stove and watching Atonement again, which gets its first national tv showing tonight.   It will be nice to be reminded of a summer's day, though the thought of swimming may be a bit of a turnoff.

We put up a Christmas tree in the hall on Friday and it glows brightly (the lights don't show up in the photograph).   This year it really is helping to lighten the bleakness of the winter solstice and the landscape actually looks like a Christmas card.  

Wishing you a happy Christmas