When I looked out of the window this morning and saw that the garden had turned into Narnia, I knew it wouldn’t be long before I was out there on my tea tray tobogganing down the downs with the other kids...
It’s when it snows, that I remember how pretty it is living opposite the downs. It looked like a winter wonderland and was so quiet that you’d never believe it was a Saturday afternoon. That was until I arrived at the ‘pistes’...
There were about 30 people or varying abilities hurling themselves down the hill on tea trays, bits of cardboard and even – shockingly enough – toboggans!!
Apparently, there were two ‘runs’ – to the side where the kids are was considered the ‘black run’ and you have basically no chance of stopping at the bottom until you hit the trees. The adults were gingerly trying to slow themselves down on the ‘nursery slopes’ but I think gravity was against them in many cases!!
So as you can see from Frosty (above), anyone can make a snowman but there seems to still be a fair amount of one-up-man-ship that goes on. Holly can suddenly be transformed into a bouffant hair-do and a smile for Mrs Frosty.
However, the people opposite were clearly on a mission not only to keep up with the Jones’ but to overtake them at 100mph. For a while, we couldn’t work out what they were doing as it looked like they were making breeze blocks wall out of snow, but it wasn’t long before we worked it out.
Despite the heavy snow, it really wasn’t that cold so I decided to pop over and see how they were getting on. I could see hands over the top so I knew someone was inside and I was praying they’d remembered to leave a door – PHEW!!
It was so nice to see everyone out and about having fun, and it wasn’t long before they had an army of helpers of all ages and even a BBQ on the go to feed the workers and warm the water for the tea. Now that’s dedication!!
I don’t think that there has been so much snow in the south east in my living memory, so as it’s such a novelty living in such a hot place, we decided to take a walk down to the sea front.
Once we’d waded through the snow at the bottom of the driveway and through the foot path at the back, I realised that there was going to be a problem on our walk – there is so much snow that you can’t see where the pavement starts and the road begins!
With the number for the local A&E on speed dial, we set off to break in my new hiking boots. First stop was Egerton Park where there was a nutter out feeding the ducks.
The swans were starting to get quite aggressive in their fight for the bread, so knowing that ‘they can have your arm off’ according to my mum, we carried on down to the seafront. We saw a slightly odd snowman family including what looked like a duck(!) and an igloo, but it wasn’t a patch on the one we’d already seen.
It was really weird to see the pebbles all covered in snow, and I had the feeling that if I changed the colour of the snow to yellow, it’d look just like sand. I was busy contemplating this when my eye was caught by someone in the distance who was clearly deranged...
Yes, he was surfing! A bloke stopped to watch with us and said that the surfer had been out there about 2 hours.
He was worried that he might get hypothermia and drown because as he told us ‘that’s why they died on the Titanic you know’. Yes, but a) we’re not in the arctic and b) the passengers on the Titanic probably weren’t wearing wet/drysuits!!
All of sudden it seemed to be getting dark, so we headed back home to see how they were getting on with the igloo. When we left, I thought they were making a snowman at the front door but it turned out they’d made one of those proper little entrance tunnels.
It’s when it snows, that I remember how pretty it is living opposite the downs. It looked like a winter wonderland and was so quiet that you’d never believe it was a Saturday afternoon. That was until I arrived at the ‘pistes’...
There were about 30 people or varying abilities hurling themselves down the hill on tea trays, bits of cardboard and even – shockingly enough – toboggans!!
Apparently, there were two ‘runs’ – to the side where the kids are was considered the ‘black run’ and you have basically no chance of stopping at the bottom until you hit the trees. The adults were gingerly trying to slow themselves down on the ‘nursery slopes’ but I think gravity was against them in many cases!!
So as you can see from Frosty (above), anyone can make a snowman but there seems to still be a fair amount of one-up-man-ship that goes on. Holly can suddenly be transformed into a bouffant hair-do and a smile for Mrs Frosty.
However, the people opposite were clearly on a mission not only to keep up with the Jones’ but to overtake them at 100mph. For a while, we couldn’t work out what they were doing as it looked like they were making breeze blocks wall out of snow, but it wasn’t long before we worked it out.
Despite the heavy snow, it really wasn’t that cold so I decided to pop over and see how they were getting on. I could see hands over the top so I knew someone was inside and I was praying they’d remembered to leave a door – PHEW!!
It was so nice to see everyone out and about having fun, and it wasn’t long before they had an army of helpers of all ages and even a BBQ on the go to feed the workers and warm the water for the tea. Now that’s dedication!!
I don’t think that there has been so much snow in the south east in my living memory, so as it’s such a novelty living in such a hot place, we decided to take a walk down to the sea front.
Once we’d waded through the snow at the bottom of the driveway and through the foot path at the back, I realised that there was going to be a problem on our walk – there is so much snow that you can’t see where the pavement starts and the road begins!
With the number for the local A&E on speed dial, we set off to break in my new hiking boots. First stop was Egerton Park where there was a nutter out feeding the ducks.
The swans were starting to get quite aggressive in their fight for the bread, so knowing that ‘they can have your arm off’ according to my mum, we carried on down to the seafront. We saw a slightly odd snowman family including what looked like a duck(!) and an igloo, but it wasn’t a patch on the one we’d already seen.
It was really weird to see the pebbles all covered in snow, and I had the feeling that if I changed the colour of the snow to yellow, it’d look just like sand. I was busy contemplating this when my eye was caught by someone in the distance who was clearly deranged...
Yes, he was surfing! A bloke stopped to watch with us and said that the surfer had been out there about 2 hours.
He was worried that he might get hypothermia and drown because as he told us ‘that’s why they died on the Titanic you know’. Yes, but a) we’re not in the arctic and b) the passengers on the Titanic probably weren’t wearing wet/drysuits!!
All of sudden it seemed to be getting dark, so we headed back home to see how they were getting on with the igloo. When we left, I thought they were making a snowman at the front door but it turned out they’d made one of those proper little entrance tunnels.
How amazing is that! Within what seemed like just a few minutes it was fully dark and the snow was once again falling heavily which meant that I could get this great photo of a tree in the garden which looks like it is covered in candles – ahh!
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