Home at last

We have made it at last and now the fun begins.  We had travelled through the night, something we said we wouldn't do again, but pleased we did because the snow may have stopped us otherwise had we not got through when we did.  After a very quick look around and unpacking a few things our time was spent cuddling our little Sophie, who, after just a few minutes, couldn't leave us alone.  She is such a people cat and to be honest we thought she would ignore us for a little while, for leaving her for so long, but no, she was fine.

I had put the electric blanket on for the bed to air, and once we had a bite to eat we decided to go to bed very early and catch up with our lost night's sleep.  It was quite funny really because we walked into the bedroom and apart from there being quite a few flies to sweep up, we moved a piece of furniture and a mouse ran out.  Welcome home!!!  Never mind, we will face those problems tomorrow.  We were lying in bed and started to giggle because we had forgotten just how dark it is here.  Not a light for miles and of course where we had been in the UK, all the streets have lights in them.  We couldn't see the hand in front of our faces.  The same kind of thing happened in the morning when we woke.  We said, "What was that?" Of course it was nothing, absolute silence and that hadn't happened to us for quite a few mornings.  Richard made us a cup of tea and coffee and we sat in bed and looked at the mountains in all their winter splendour and noticed that the birds were sitting waiting for us to fill up all the feeders.

On close inspection after we got up, our poor house needed quite a lot of TLC, after all, we have been away for nearly 6 months.  With having mud walls and floors, the damp comes up through the floor.  When you are living in the house all the time, the house seems to breath and you don't seem to notice it, but not being lived in for that long, quite a lot of our drawers and cupboards were rather mouldy and musty.  Food thrown out, drawers washed, windows cleaned etc and it is starting to feel more like home although there is still such a lot to do.  Slowly slowly we need to take our time.  On the second day, the chimney in the kitchen blocked and the log burner had to be taken out and the chimney cleaned.  Of course we had taken the whole of the previous day cleaning the kitchen and washing all the pottery to put back on the dresser, so very pleased it happened the day after that............... !!!!!!  Eeek!  Are we still smiling??  Only just.  On a good note, Sophie caught a mouse in our bedroom so that is one problem solved but I'm sure there are a few more.  I lie there at night time and hear a few things but luckily I'm not scared of mice, I just don't want to share my bedroom with them.  As you can see from the photo, apart from the fact that Sophie is very pleased to have us back, she is in the right place to listen out for the pitter patter of mousy feet - that's if she stays awake long enough.

At the moment we are taking a break and I am typing this sitting in front of the fire in the lounge, after having a lovely walk at lunchtime.  It is very cold but the sun was lovely and we promised ourselves we would try and go for a walk every day.  I need to get my colesterol down and Richard needs to build himself up again and of course I am fighting with my weight all the time so the more we can do to help that situation the better.

Well I had better stop now and get on with some more work.   I hope all our friends and family in the UK are keeping safe and warm.  The snow looks dreadful, so mum and dad, should you read this at Hilary's, please stay indoors and keep warm, I know what you are like dad, you will be out there clearing the snow away so you can feed the birds, but please don't.  Hopefully I will be able to blog on a regular basis again now so I hope to catch up with all of my fellow bloggers in the next few days.  Bye, talk again soon.