After a weekend of heavy snow fall, we are snowed in! Peter stayed at home today as there was no way he would attempt to drive down the hill to work. Getting out of our drive alone would have been a challenge with 18 cm of snow and a fair amount of ice too!

Once the sheep were fed with plenty of fresh bedding in their shelters and hay in the racks and once we had broken the ice off the drinkers and water troughs, we enjoyed walks to take photos. Especially today as the sun was out and the …

As I write this, I am sipping a warming hot chocolate and I have both woodburners lit. Outside, there is a heavy shower of hail and sleet covering the ground with little balls of freezing white stuff. Last night, I brought in the sweet peas that are hardening off before being planted out as I thought the cold may be too much for them. I covered the young parsnips planted out in their bed at the weekend but they are now looking a little sulky following the overnight frost. The Brussels Sprouts spent the night outside unprotected with no adverse …

Abigail, Barney, Clodagh and Desmond all visited us in Mid-Wales in the past month and these storms, one after the other with little respite in between, all brought with them much rain and high winds. Desmond, last weekend, was a beast: we have never experienced winds as high as these and for such a long time!

There was flooding in the Severn Valley below us and some main roads were impassable for a while as the rainwater travelled quickly down the hills to the valley where the river burst its banks. The drainage channels around our property quickly became fast-flowing …