wateroverstone

An absolute Winter Wonderland of a drive home from my mother's this afternoon. It's a stunning drive anytime of the year as I'm travelling from Coastal Cumbria, around the north and east of the Lake District then to the West of the Yorkshire Dales down to the Ribble Valley, mostly off motorway. The entire journey was either snow: enough to cover all the fields and hills, or heavy frost riming all the hedges, trees and verges. There were rags of clouds hanging around the valleys of the mountains and the whole journey was exceptionally pretty. Only the confident drivers were out, and I'd driven for nearly two hours before I got stuck behind a tractor. This is exceptional.

Visiting Mum is always a mixed bag. She's very good for her age, but gets over-excited when my brother visits and then gets over-tired and spends her time telling us about our father, who, surprisingly enough, we knew all our lives and were physically present for most of the incidents she tells us of. Which she gets wrong. And then she goes onto what a difficult child I was (I wasn't) and how nice my brother was. I was given control of the log burner to keep me calm. This helped. I burned a lot of wood last night. I'm talented with fires.

Snow and fire has put me into a slightly better mood about my third house sale falling through. I shall spend the evening with friends and be adult again tomorrow. Thank goodness I haven't taken all the old paint cans to the tip yet.