Thoughts on Snowy Weather

We've had a lot of snow lately. Well, compared to the typical amount of snow this area sees.

Last week we had three straight days of crap weather. On the first two days, Matt had a hard time just getting out of his parking space to drive to work. (He had parked facing uphill, and each time he tried to get into the street, he would start sliding backwards. He ended up just turning around to go downhill, and taking an alternate route to work.) I don't like driving in bad weather anyway, and after adding in my UK driving anxiety, I decided to walk the kids to school.

On Wednesday, the walk was no problem. The kids were excited because of snow, and it wasn't extremely cold. After that, everything went downhill.

Yes, we did move from a state in the US that gets much more snow than our current location. Here are some differences:

• Colorado is prepared for snow. So when bad weather hits, you know that most of the streets (and even bike trails) will be cleared. Here, they'll put down grit, but there aren't plows going around making the streets safe to drive on. 
• Sidewalks are even worse. No one shovels their sidewalks here, so you just have to walk through it until everything melts. On Thursday, there was a decent amount of snow and slush on the ground during our walks, and I got quite a workout pushing the stroller through it. 
• Since neither the streets nor the sidewalks are very safe for travel, and this is unusual weather for the area, you might think that school would be cancelled for safety reasons. Wrong. I'm actually curious to know what it would take to cancel school here (but I don't want to find out).

Here are a few pictures of our walk from that second day.

 The temperature got high enough that day to start melting even what was on the sidewalk, and of course once the sun went down, it all froze. On Friday, the roads had maintained enough heat to be decently clear, but the sidewalks were solid ice. Matt drove the kids to school that morning, and I made the mistake of walking to pick Clara up at midday. We made it safely, but it was cold and took forever. Did I mention that I sold my snow boots before we left the States? I didn't think I'd need them!

I realize that this entire post sounds negative. But I'm keeping it real, and it was a very grumpy three days.

By the end of the weekend, the snow and ice was gone and things were back to normal. Now I'm back to my positive self and crossing my fingers that we can get back to the rain!

Harewood House

During the kids' term break, we took one afternoon to visit Harewood House.

Harewood House is a country house near Leeds, and has been in the Lascelles family since it was built in the mid 1700s. In 1929, Mary, Princess Royal (eldest daughter of King George V) moved into the house with her husband Henry Lascelles, 6th Earl of Harewood.

When we went, the house was beautifully decorated for Christmas. We were able to explore part of the inside of the house, as well as a portion of the grounds.

We wandered around the ground floor first, and the detail in every room was amazing. And the best part was that we were allowed to take photos (without flash).

Entryway

Library

Ceiling detail from the library

This was a box containing small dolls, and the card on top appears to have a dead robin on it

This gold room was elegantly decorated

Ceiling in the gold room

It had games set up, and a toy pig on the sofa

The next room had dolls and doll houses set up

Creepy dolls

Ceiling from the doll room

This was a long hall with many paintings

Can you tell that I loved the ceilings?

Window covering

Dining Room

Some kind of sitting room

It doesn't look like it, but we breezed through the house, upstairs and down. I would have loved to study more in detail, but such is life with three young kids.

Next we went downstairs, where the servants worked and lived. Compared to upstairs, this level was stark, but still fascinating.

This looked like a common room for servants, with chairs lined up facing the fireplace

Close up of the bells you can see at the top of the previous picture

Another bell system, using electricity

Kitchen

Old fashioned knife cleaner

Pastry room

Vegetable scullery

Grinding spices

There were huge amounts of storage

Once we finished (ahem, once the kids were finished) indoors, we headed out the back to see the gardens and the animals. The estate is enormous, and we definitely didn't see all of it.

First the back garden. I loved the symmetry, and the kids loved running around.

Back view of the house

We walked to the courtyard, where they have a cafe, gift shop, and entrance to the farm and bird area.

Aren't they cute?

We tried to move quickly through this part, because the kids really only cared about seeing the penguins (Miles knew about these from a previous trip). Unfortunately for the kids, we didn't know the most direct path to the penguin area, so Matt and I got to see a lot.

Donkey

Cranes

This was about 3pm

We finally got to the penguins about 10 minutes before the outside areas closed. But the kids didn't seem disappointed with the brief encounter.

Since things were starting to close outside, and it was getting colder, we headed toward the car. But first I had to get a festive picture.

On the way to the car, we saw a little hut selling marshmallows and hot drinks. I got each of the big kids a stick, and they tried toasting the marshmallows. They ended up having Matt finish for them, and we ate quickly to get out of the cold. But it was fun!

Overall it was a fun day. I liked that we got to see everything decorated for the holidays, but I wouldn't mind going back in warmer weather.