Going Polar

Have an inevitable snow picture.




Have another one. After Andy's nine day 'at home' holiday, we were cut off by snow. Joy. The gritters didn't come down our winding country lanes, leaving them iced over. So we were cut off, and with a 45 mile commute to work on a motorbike, he was 'at home' again, for most of the week. I'd rather he was safely at home climbing the walls then in a cold ditch with a broken neck, in spite of the general trend to tut-tut at people who didn't or couldn't get to work. Bikes and snow don't go. With the whole village confined, and delivery lorry unable to get through, our one little Co-op soon ran out of supplies. It was stripped. We managed to get one little loaf (loaves being rationed to one per customer) - the last one in the shop. And a carton of goat's milk Longlife milk. Thankfully we already had some normal UHT and the dreaded stuff remains in its box, now we are getting back to normal and have fresh. Lines must be drawn, and Longlife goat's milk is where I draw mine.




Thankfully we had plenty of wood and more than enough food. We and the cats hunkered down to sit it out. Naturally, the cats hogged the sofa. Before he went completely loopy with cabin fever, he did struggle in for the weekend rota, although because of the treacherous ice, his late Saturday night shift and early Sunday start, he had to stay overnight at the nearby, ghastly (and this one is ghastly) Travel Lodge. So I was home alone with the cats. As usual, I had plenty of things to do, not least of which was designing a prototype polar bear. A great excuse to watch my Arctic DVD and try to grasp the essentials of polar-bearness.




I was also dying to use one of the little glass bear noses I bought last year - only 8mm across at the widest point - it's the tiny black thing I've got pinned to my felting sponge up there, with my two lead bears saying hello to the white woolly blob that was the start of Petra. I wanted a really simply shape, and looked at lots of Inuit carvings - I figured they were probably the experts, and most toy bears I found were really just white teddy bears. Every bear type has distinguishing characteristics, and the challenge of the Polar is that it is deceptively easy looking. As it was, there was much adding and chopping before I finally got what I was looking for.




With a thaw setting in, at last we were able to get over to the woods, where we found evidence of Badger tramping solidly along a path. Badgers have five 'fingers' in a straight-ish row, as opposed to a dog's four pads. They walk along putting their back foot as near as possible to their front foot, so old Brock's trail looked like a two legged race.




Driven by hunger, the little Muntjac deer were down in the bluebell woods, the most walked in part of the reserve. They almost didn't care how near we were, but eventually they sloped off into the beech grove ahead.




To my unkind amusement, Andy had a slapstick moment, when he leaned on a rotten gate post which promptly collapsed under him. Unfortunately there was a large, slushy, muddy puddle just where he landed and I would be derelict in my duty if I did not share this moment with the world.




Now conditions are somewhat better and routines are almost restored; though our roads are still like ice rinks and I count the hours until Andy is safely home. Roll on Spring.