Dazed and confused and all before breakfast.

Every so often here at Penole we have an all action day and today has been one.


You would have had to have the news disconected and maybe be locked in the house to have failed to notice the last few days have been a tad chilly.


Serious cold has been the experience here and that has exploded in two dimensions. The first has been transport, the  little road up the mountain to our drive has become virtually a uniform sheet of ice.

Driving up ice is one thing but driving down it takes excitement to a whole new level. Normally this sort of thing would be dealt with with a bit of Green Goddess 4x4. Ice though is very different to snow, when driving down ice it's the standard drill; low gear and feet off everything. Of course if it's really icy or  steep or both what can happen is you lose tyre traction and the vehicle just scates off in a random direction. In a car that's "interesting" in 5 tons of Green Goddess thats a bit more "excitement" than I would like.

Taking the kids to school both management (AX) and I (806) had a skiing moment or two where the car in second idling begins to accelerate away out of control as it skates over the icy surface. You can of course accelerate till the wheels are back at the right speed then try and decelerate again. You could also chuck an anchor out the back

 ABS, on paper offer a whole host of new levels of control, excepting if the  tyres are gripping at nothing  the ABS  is less use than the cigarette lighter to a non smoker..

Now, if you are thinking this might be all have been a  bit interesting then you would be right.

I went out this morning to drop the kids for school then out to the builders merchants to get bits to re do the pipes (enough of frozen pipes we will get to that soon ). Then out again to get the one bit that the builders merchants would not have then out to get the kids then out to meet the college bus then home.

On one of those trips we rounded the corner on the way home to find another car - half way up the hedge.

Stopping, (wow, how did we do that!!) we summoned Taliesin who arrived shortly after with his V8 Discovery and a tow rope.  The state of traction being well illustrated as Tallie stood up from hitching the rope and slid away gently down the hill. luckily towards the other vehicle.   We soon had the nice lady  recovered and on her way, being a nice lady she pressed a note into Taliesins hand.

He is not daft and very soon Taliesin seemed to be spending most of his time looking out of the window spotting  cars leaving the main road, then shortly after disapearing up the drive with his tow rope.

I'm not sure quite how many cars he towed out but he did mention one that got away, well sort of. Someone got stuck and Tallie missed it so someone else got there first with a Defender that they promptly got stuck too. They got a special two for the price of one deal when he attached the Disco to the Defender then pulled the pair of them out in one.

He has not been forthcoming with the profit of the day but he does seem to be in a good mood.

Of course we now move on to the second of the days vexed issues - water.

We are on a private water supply and I really am kicking myself, I saw this coming and did not put 50 gallons of water into jacks for just this emergency.

So this morning we woke to a zero water situation.

We spent much of this morning clearing various pipes of ice. Spotted the frost shattered one way valve on the well head where at some stage the insulation had been blown away. That was two of our trips out.

Then  fell back to emergency planning; we have a reserve pipe that can be used to bridge the gap from the house to the pump head.  Using the pipe bypasses everything from pump to tap, a cunning piece of emergency planning by me. This is stored outside ready for use, (anyone spotted the flaw) can be left connected all day then brought inside for the night so it does not freeze.

We had reckoned without there being any water left in the pipes which of course there was. It took us a while to work that out and by then it was getting late so we just pumped lots of water into jerry cans for toilet flushing and dish washing then called it a day.

By then it was time for more trips down the cresta run to the main road.

And of course Branwen suddenly remembered  that she was baby sitting and needed to be at her sisters 15 miles away  by 6 PM.

Having taken a very circuitous route, we got back by twenty to seven  tonight

"Time we had some breakfast" I said, "good idea" she said.  

I don't think the student is uni minded tomorrow, what with the ski run and all.

I am going to switch the alarm off before I forget.

R