Snow and Cold Weather Cancellations!

The last three days seem to have been a series of cancellations, due to the prospect of bad weather and snowfalls.

On Sunday, after reading the weather forecasts for the Bingely Area for Monday, I took a straw poll of some of the members of the Eldwick & Gilstead Male Voice Choir, and the overwhelming result was "Cancel tonight's practice" It was probably the correct decision, as when I came to take Ruby out for her final evening stroll, the snow was falling quite heavily and she came back blond and I came back looking like the Abominable Snowman!

I looked out of our bedroom window about 4.30 am on Tuesday morning, and the road and pavement could barely be discerned. Nothing had been along the road, not even a gritter or a snowplough, so when I got up at about 7.30 am I decided that I would cancel my visit to Crossflatts Primary. It seems I was not the only one to make this decision, because both Bingley Grammar and Beckfoot were both closed!

According to the Met Office internet weather forecast for the Bradford area, we are due for heavy falls of snow at 09.00 and 15.00. on Wednesday. I am supposed to be doing my stint at Skipton TIC tomorrow (between 10.00 and 16.00), but having heeded the weather forecast I have phoned to say that I will probably not be going. I don't fancy getting stuck on the Aire Valley Trunk Road, and having to walk back to Cottingley!

I have a wedding to play on Saturday morning -the wedding is due to take place at 12.00, but as they are having the Aire Valley Singers, and a trumpeter, who both require me to accompany them it means I will have to be down at church by 11.00 at the latest to run through their music with them. It could be intereting if it decides to snow heavily on Friday night....... Oh! I gather the heating failed in All Saints on Sunday, so if it is still out of action there might be some lusty singing to help keep the congregation warm!

Sheep May Safely Graze

They tell me that J S Bach wrote his Cantata "Sheep May Safely Graze" upon hearing of the death of the local butcher.

There were plenty of sheep doing just that this morning. We had had another fall of snow during the night and the sheep in the photo below had cleared the snow with their hooves and were busy grazing on the grass they had uncovered.



There was a constant stream of sheep passing the fence in the back garden, and they all seemed to be heading in the same directon. It made me wonder if the farmer had brought some hay into the bottom field.

We usually tip out the left over vegetables, potato skins and fruit in to the field, and the sheep have cottoned on to this fact. If they happen to be around when the fruit and veg is thrown over into the field, there is a charge from the flock to see who can get there first!

It was certainly a cold night, with snow falling, as some of the sheep still had snow attached to their fleeces.

I had a look out of the bedroom window about 4.30 am this morning and there were no signs of the road. It was competely covered in snow. As I type this (at about 9.30 am) the gritting wagon has not been up the road yet.

Raffi and the Need for a Walk Last Thing at Night

This is Velevt Revolver Ace of Spades to be known as Raphael (or Raffi for short) and I am reliably informed that he has already got a home booked with Sarah.



Well, was I tempting fate or what the day before yesterday with my "Snow, What Snow?" I've just got back from taking Ruby on her final walk of the day - a short relieve the bladder one. She came back blonde, and I arrived back looking like the abominable snowman. It was absolutely tipping it down with snow!

So remember Sarah, whatever the weather Raffi will need a short walk last thing at night if you don't want puddles all over the house!

'Sno(w) Use Complaining If it's Going to Snow it will Snow

I don't know if you ever follow the weather forecasts (I only tend to do it if I think the weather is going to affect my plans) but just out of interest today I thought I would have a look at all the ones I have saved on my computer. (I have a practice scheduled for the Eldwick & Gilstead Male Voice Choir at St Wilfrid's Church Hall tomorrow night, and I don't want to be caught out if there is to be a bad fall of snow.) Also some of the members travel from Otley, Eccleshill, and Idle so it only seems fair that if the weather is due to be bad we will cancel the practice.

So how do they compare???

These are the results for BD16............

Sunday pm Monday

Yahoo Partly Cloudy Partly Cloudy

GMTV Sunny Sunny Intervals

BBC Sunny with light snow 18.00 Sunny with heavy snow 03.00

Met Office Light Snow Shower 18.00 Light Snow Shower 03.00

Met Office Invent Heavy Snow showers S and W Yorkshire up to 10 cm on hills

TWC Partly Cloudy Light Snow at Night

Met Check Cloudy Light Snow at 18.00

Accu Weather Cloudy 4.6 cms snow at night

The general concensus of opinion seems to be that it will be cloudy today and there will be some snow tomorrow. As I am typing this (16.10) the snow has blown in from across Bingley Moor and it is snowing in Cottingley right now! A few minutes ago you could see right up to "Dick Hudson's" and the caravans on Shipley Glen. Now there is nothing beyond the local house rooftops!

Snow - What Snow?

For the past 48 hours the weather forecasters have been warning us that we were in for heavy snow. I even heard the word blizzard mentioned in relation to the Yorkshire area!

Well for two days we have been happily watching the snow in other areas - Aberdeen, Newcastle, Alnwick, Morpeth (the temperature in Morpeth has been reported as -16C!) Some areas of Northumberland have reported 14" of snow, but this morning we got our first taste of real snow.

There wasn't too much of it, but enough to cover the ground and make the view up the fields look quite picturesque.



Certainly we have had some quite low temperatures. Yesterday I took Dot to work and noticed that the temperature on the car thermometer read - 4.0 C.

This morning I heard the forecasters predicting that we could have more snow, and the temperatures would be staying below zero for up to ten days.

This prolonged cold spell is due to the wind direction changing, and we are now benefitting from cold winds from Siberia!

According to my reckoning this means that the prolonged snow and cold weather will last until next Monday. Isn't it just my luck that I have two concerts booked for next weekend (at Wrose and Heaton) - and both have to be approached up hills!

We've Got Three New Brothers!

There was lots of excitement in our house in the early hours of yesterday morning. We both got disturbed by a lot of fuss and commotion, then we realised that Macy was missing. We thought that was what all the fuss was about. It wasn't until later in the day that we discovered that she had had three boy pups.

Today, Ruby came to see us, and we were so tired that we spent quite a bit of time sleeping together in one of the comfy chairs!



Ruby left us to it for a little while and watched the TV. She made herself comfortable on Pixie's blanket first.

First Pics of the New Pups!

Well here we are folks! The proud new Mum with her pups.




All three pups are boys, and in the next day or so will be registered with their new names.

Mum and babies are all doing well.

We understand the ex secretary at Dot's work has expressed an interest in one of them.

The Patter of Twelve Tiny Paws!

There are some sleepy folk in the Martin Household this morning! Sometime between 2.00 am & 3.30 am Macy gave birth to three healthy puppies! Two Boys for certain and as yet we are not sure of the sex of the third puppy.



We got a text message early this morning telling us of the news, then I got a phone call just after I got back from taking Dot to work. By that time Macy was up and had had her breakfast. (I can't vouch for the human members of the household though!)

On my was back from Cottingley Hall the weather forecast was on the radio and I pricked up my ears when I heard "Blizzard warnings have been issued across the whole of Scotland, the eastern side of the country and Yorkshire. Well we'll wait and see if the forecasters have got it right!

Let the Christmas Concerts commence!

Tonight the Christmas Concert season starts off for the Eldwick & Gilstead Male Voice Choir. We start the ball rolling at Willow Bank in Allerton.

The programme consists of lesser known Christmas Carols and Christmas songs, with a couple of Welsh Traditional Songs thrown in for good measure.

We then have concerts booked for Saturday 4th December at Bolton Villas United Reformed Church (Wrose) and Sunday 5th December at St Barnabas Church Heaton as well as Saturday 11th December at Riddlesden United Reformed Church - as the entertainment for their Christmas Bazaar.

Animal World

It's an all animal feature today!

I am led to believe that the patter of tiny paws will soon be heard in the Martin household. It seems that Macy is pregnant, and due to give birth sometime in the not too distant future - about a week or two!

Dot was looking out of the back bedroom window earlier this week and she called me to have a look at what she thought she was seeing. I grabbed my camera and lo and behold, there was a Magpie perched on the head of a sheep! Enlarge the pictures and you will see what I mean.



The sheep seemed totally unfazed by this, and on closer examination I could see why. The Magpie was actually pecking ticks out of the sheeps wool. It was later joined by its mate, and the two of them spent a few minutes "cleaning the sheep up", before moving on to the sheep on the left of this shot!

I've seen shots of birds doing this to jungle animals, but never to domesticted farm animals before!

Information Storage

Those of you who follow my blog will have noticed how conspicuous I have been by my absence during the early part of the month of November! This has been due to the fact that I managed to wipe off the records of someting like 800 CD's, and there was no way that I have been able to recover them, so I have been busy re typing all the necessary details of these CD's!

The good news is that I have at this moment re catalogued 619 of them so far, so am now past the half way mark!

At the same time as typing in all the details I have listened to quite a goodly proportion of the CD's, and rediscovered music I had long forgotten. It is a mammoth task, because all the CD's I have compiled myself have needed their details typing on to the CD's themselves, so that when they are playing you have a readout of what the title of the track is, and who the artist is, as well as the length of the track!

It's been a long, slow and laborious process, but, as I was told by the guy who built me my first computer, - if you are using it to catalogue things, the more information you input, the more versatile and useful the catalogue is!

As I have catalogues for LP's (remember those 12" black vinyl discs?), Cassettes, CD's, DVD's, Books, and Talking Cassettes & CD's - there is quite a vast amount of information stored! I also have catalogues for colour slides and between 2,000 & 3,000 digital photographs stored as well.

Christmas Preparations

Christmas preparations are beginning to pick up speed. Yesterday I sorted out all the Christmas Music and Carols for the Church Services and the Male Voice Choir Concerts. Today it was the turn of selecting and purchasing Christmas Cards.

For a goodly number of years now Dot and I have made a point of purchasing Christmas Cards which support a Charity. We had looked at the various non charitable cards which were produced and found it hard to believe that Christmas is about the birth of Baby Jesus. You can get cards with Robins, Holly, Ivy, Mistletoe, Christmas Trees, Snow Scenes, Presents, Baubles, Lights - in fact just about anything that shows the materialistic and non religious side of Christmas, but have you tried to get any religious cards this year??? They are rarer than hen's teeth!

I'm just about to put the finishing touches to my Christmas Newsletter, which is sent to all my ex staff and one or two other people who we haven't seen during the year. This usually runs to about 8 sides of A4 paper (including photographs), and goodness knows how long it would take to write if I had to write each copy!

Only Another 37 Days to Christmas

By my reckoning it's only another 37 days to Christmas, and would you believe it, I heard my first Christmas Carol today. It was as background music for some advert, and was so impressive that I can't even remember what the carol was or what it was supposed to be advertising!

However, it is about this time of year that I commence to put together all the music for the Christmas Services at church and the music for the concerts we will be giving with Eldwick & Gilstead Male Voice Choir. We have been practising a whole range of Christmas music with the EGMVC for about a couple of months, so I now select from the repertoire we have rehearsed and compile a Christmas Concert programme.

We already have four concerts booked. One on this coming Monday, one on Saturday 4th December, one on Sunday 5th December and another on Saturday 11th December.

Having chased up the people responsible for compiling the readings for the Lessons & Carols and the Christingle/Nativity Play about a month ago I now have all the necessary information to put these service together, so I have spent most of this afternoon sorting out Christmas music and carols!

We seem to be fairly well prepared in our house at the moment. Lots of Christmas presents have already been bought. The good lady usually starts her Christmas Shopping whilst we are on holiday! We have also spent a couple of days shopping over the last two weeks as well.

The Pantomime tickets have been purchased! It's booked for Friday 14th January at 7.00 pm. [Just in case you're wondering what it is this year - it's Dick Whittington]

We now await the snowy weather which is supposed to happen soon! (Bags of Rock Salt and a new Snow Shovel have already been purchased!)