We thought that the snow that was falling on other parts of the country was going to miss us but on Friday we awoke to a very wintry scene.

Fortunately, we weren’t treated to the gales that were forecast to create blizzard conditions and compared to many places we escaped quite lightly.

We don’t suffer from snow very often, but when we do our system doesn’t cope well. News reporters become very excited reporting of stranded motorists, planes grounded, train and bus services suspended and schools closed. In the nearly thirty years that I was teaching we didn’t close the school once for snow. I remember getting up early and trudging the two and a half miles to arrive at school before the children started to arrive. Playtimes were extended to allow for snowball fights and the building of snowmen.

I guess that nowadays they fear accidents that will result in schools being sued for negligence.

The snow only hung around for a couple of days and now there is hardly any signs that it was ever here.

At the beginning of the week we managed a couple of walks with Ruby. Our visit to Nostell involved a close encounter with an angry Canada goose.

It didn’t approve of another goose feeding by my feet and charged at it so it could steal the prime position.  Ruby was amazed by it. If you would like to see the action a video is posted here.

It was an afternoon of excitement for Ruby as when we arrived home she was treated to a ‘bath’ in preparation for a visit from the groomer on the following day. It was just in time for the weather to turn cold,

The only bit of gardening related news is that our amaryllis or hippeastrum – choose your preferred name – is flowering for the third year.

It has only managed one flower stem this year.

Last year it had two stems but the flowers were short-lived as the whole plant became top heavy and fell over breaking off the flower heads. This year we are attempting to avoid a recurrence and have added some ballast to the pot.

Finally, turning to last week’s homegrown, or partially homegrown, meals.

I made a Thai red chicken curry using our onion, garlic and frozen French beans. It was served with a mix of basmati and wild rice. I used Thai basil rather than coriander. The picture accompanying the recipes seems to show some red chilli but this wasn’t on the list of ingredients.

I then made a sort of vegetable cobbler using our parsnip – a rarity this year, carrot, and leek The recipe has disappeared from the internet so I can’t add a link but mushrooms were added to our vegetables in a milk and stock sauce. A scone topping finished it off.

Another meal was a vegetable bolognese served with linguine. Into this went our onion, garlic, carrot and frozen peppers.

Finally, I made a turkey paella that used more onion, garlic, frozen peppers and frozen peas.

No harvest last week or allotment visits so that’s all for now so until next time stay safe, stay well and stay warm.,