Growing Icicles, Low Temperatures and a Dusting of Sparkles

The icicles are growing after the rather cool evening yesterday! If you compare the photos I took yesterday with the one below you can see that they have most certainly grown!



The photo below was taken about 9.oo am.



When I got into the car this morning to take Dot to work, I really thought that the thermometer was on the blink. It was showing - 10.5 before I set off, and by the time I had got down the road it had dropped to -11.00! This is what it was showing after I got back home.





With temperatures this low who needs a freezer? Just stick your food outside and let mother nature do the work for you!

By now the sun had risen and was shining on the garage roof next door. It really looked as though someone had sprinkled the snow with diamonds. There was sparkle everywhere.



It as just as sparkly in the field behind out house too.

When Icicles Hang By The Wall

Those of you who know your Shakespeare will recognise the title of today's blog:-

"When Icicles hang by the wall
And Dick the Shepherd blows his nail
And milk comes frozen home in pail....."

Well we certainly had some superb specimans of icicles hanging by the house wall today. I first noticed them when I drew back the curtains this morning. There they were right outside the bedroom window, then as I looked to the right I saw even more, and larger icicles. They bear out the fact that we have had some extremely low temperatures over the last few nights.

We have lived in our house for sightly more than forty years, and in all that time I cannot recall seeing icicles the size of those that were hanging outside today!

This was the view of them from outside the house.


Getting up close, and taking a shot from the bedroom window just reveals the size of them!

It's been another day of cancellations. This time both the concert we had arranged at Wrose, and the concert we had arranged at Heaton have been called off by the people we were giving the concerts for. When I phoned round all the members of the Male Voice Choir this morning there was an almost audible sigh of relief!

I had a phone call from one of the local undertakers asking if I could play for a funeral at Nab Wood Crematorium tomorrow morning, so I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that we don't have another heavy fall of snow tonight!

I've removed almost seven inches of snow from the roof of the car this morning, and cleared two tracks down the drive, and sprinkled plenty of rock salt on the drive, so there shouldn't be any problem with getting out of Cottingley!

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!