Auntie Abi and Uncle Will came to visit during their whirlwind trip of the UK. Some of the pictures here are courtesy of Will and Abi.. you can probably tell which ones they are as they look a lot better than my pics courtesy of Will's fantastic SLR as opposed to our little dinky toy comera.
Abi and Will brought with them their young baby daughter Amelia. We think that Lucas took to Amelia, on the assumption that trying to claw someone's eyes out is a show of affection that is!
Once again we went to The Unicorn Inn in nearby Deddington for a traditional English Sunday pub lunch.
After that we drove to Chipping Campden, another small village in the Cotswolds where Will spent some of his childhood.
We took a trip to Charlbury a while ago. Charlbury is a large village at the foot of the Cotswolds. Like all Cotswolds villages it is renowned for the great stone work of the old houses and buildings.
We spent a lovely afternoon at The Bell Inn, a lovely family friendly hotel that served good beer and great sticky date pudding. We'll return at some point to have a proper meal.
BTW I realise that some of you haven't seen a picture of our car yet, so here it is!
In other interesting Lucas news, he spent his first afternoon with a baby sitter a few weeks ago, as Nat and I saw a movie together for the first time in over a year. Thanks to Laura who volunteered a few hours of her Saturday afternoon to look after Lucas whilse we went into Maidenhead to watch 'Dreamgirls'. Lucas apparently was very well behaved, and it was only from about 5:00 pm onwards that Lucas began to get upset and worried. We arrived back at 5:30 pm to see poor old Lucas with tears streaming down his face... don't worry.. we haven't abandoned you yet!
After the dusting a few weeks ago, we got the real deal today. About 6" deep in parts, average depth about 10-15 cm.
This is what I was greeted with this morning.
So I tried to leave work at 7:30 am.. made it out of my immediate estate.. which although covered in snow was negotiable mainly because it was flat.
Turned right onto the main road.. I presumed that it would be graded.. I was wrong. After about 10 seconds of trying to get up a very small hill and sliding backwards.. I gave up and reversed back into a nearby pub's carpark.. and watched how others went.
Seeing a few cars sliding their way sideways up the hill I decided that it wasn't quite worth it yet.. so I turned around and went home.
Naturally, there was traffic chaos all throughout Oxfordshire. Many of my colleages were struggling to get to work, some took about two hours.. whilst others still couldn't make it after taking that long. Others were stuck in their village (ie completely snowed in).
After taking Lucas outside to play in the snow, we built our first snowman and throw a few snowballs at Natasha, I set off again just after 10 am.
That snow-man (or snow-baby) looks a bit sickly.. I think we need more practise!
The main roads around were now graded and were quite easy to drive along, your typical wet slushy muddy snow. I stuck to about 40 mph and had no dramas.
Turning on the B-road though wa a little hairy...I doubt this had been graded (or if it had, the continuous snowfalls had rendered it fairly useless). I had to stuck in the ruts.. and I was driving on compacted snow through a windy road. I kept it in 2nd gear, occasionally downshifting to 1st before a downhill corner.
I got the Bartons Ok.. but the road through the village was very slippery. My big challenge now as to get up the big hill from the Bartons and into work. Apparently earlier that morning they were using tractors to tow people up the hill! However, when I arrived there were no tractors to be seen, just a big truck and a few cars parked at the bottom of the hill.
I thought about parking at the side of the hill and walk the 500 or so metres to work, but then I decided to give it a go. I gunned into 2nd and gave myself a bit of a run-up.. success!
After taking care of that.. I now know why people laugh at Australians for having to fit chains the moment a single snowflake touches the asphalt!
Getting home was a bit easier as the B-road was graded. However, I still got stuck getting onto the B-road at the edge of the factory.. thanks for the guys in stores for giving me a push!
Once I got home there was time for a romantic walk through the snow into town for a hot chocolate and some provisions from M&S.
