• Home
Tag:

snow

A house, warmly lit up from light within, stands against a dark but starry sky.
Crowditch

And So To 2025

by Lydia January 10, 2025

Christmas has now passed and January has come rushing at us thick and fast, but it was a marvellous first Christmas in our new home. There were day visits northward to visit family in Caithness, and there was a long-weekend visit from family from England and Spain. But Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and Boxing Day we spent at home (or in the local area), just us. All in all, it was pretty much perfect.

The family visit, hosting a houseful, was utter chaos, but exactly what we wanted when we bought the house. There were three families under one roof (totalling four cousins), with grandparents staying in a nearby hotel. The layout downstairs worked really well, with the large kitchen and the sitting room and our snug leading off it (one day, there will also be a dining room leading from the kitchen – but at the moment, that is full of boxes). I’ve always been a firm believer that the kitchen is the heart of the home, and it felt like it, even as it is right now with make-shift worktops and a mish-mash of furniture. Euan finished off the bar for the sitting room (a slim strip of oak on tall black legs), and we used it in the kitchen for extra worktop-height space. We moved the smaller table (what was once, many moons and two or three houses ago, my desk) into the sitting room for the kids, and it has been so handy there that we haven’t bothered rearranging everything back again yet.

There were some things we couldn’t predict until we tried out having so many people in the house. Having an airbed in the guest room (in addition to the double bed) for our niece didn’t work too well, so after the first night we pushed the two settees together in the sitting room and she and Auri had a lot of fun sleeping there (there was absolutely nothing wrong with Auri’s bed, but sharing the settee with her cousin was understandably deemed much more fun).

The day after the family left, there was a significant snowfall, followed in the early-ish hours by a deluge of rain, resulting in a leak in the sitting room. We’d only fixed the previous one in early autumn, but I think the recent storms must have loosened another tile. Apart from that, though, the house survived the season unscathed, a host to happy memories being made.

On New Year’s Day, there was a display of the Merry Dancers and the sky was alive with stars. We took some photos outside from the back garden, some a tad blurry because of the night setting, our home a warm beacon of light.

Our home. The first day of a new year, the sky alive with stars.

January 10, 2025
FacebookTwitterPinterestTumblrThreadsBlueskyEmail
A child, wrapped up in coat, hat, scarf and gloves, kneels in the Spring sunshine blowing bubbles.
Crowditch

Springing and Sprunging

by Lydia March 27, 2023

Despite the fact there was snow yesterday, and an almost-frost on the ground this morning, I really do feel like Spring has Sprung. It’s here, I know it. Even the chill of the shade today couldn’t overpower the warmth of the sun.

March 27, 2023
FacebookTwitterPinterestTumblrThreadsBlueskyEmail
A child's perpetual calendar of wooden blocks, showing the day, date and a block representing snow.
Crowditch

Snow Days

by Lydia January 18, 2023
January 18, 2023
FacebookTwitterPinterestTumblrThreadsBlueskyEmail
A decorated Christmas Tree with warm lights stands in a corner of a room. To the right is a table with a small Araucaria heterophylla and a hand-made snowman made from a glass jar and cotton wool, with a green knitted scarf and a paper top hat.
Crowditch

Croymas Has Begun!

by Lydia December 5, 2022

Scapa has just returned from her walk and, noticing I had a blanket ready to put over my knees on the settee once I’d settled down with my cup of tea, pointedly stood there staring at it and me until I ended up opening it out and lifting it up so she could curl up under the blanket herself. No room for me.

There was a thick frost on the ground this morning, and it still hasn’t entirely shifted as we step into the afternoon. We are due snow this week – Wednesday, apparently – which is all very exciting. Auri, who at nearly four entirely equates snow with Christmas-time for obvious reasons, can’t wait and keeps describing the snowball fights we’re going to have. There are a series of seasonal milestones that are all wonderfully jumbled up in her head right now: Pip being born; Tonton Neeps, Tatie Aurélie and Baby Cousin Ailsa arriving; Christmas; snow. There are probably more. I was trying to explain the concept of ‘Christmas-time’ as opposed to ‘Christmas Day’ to her this morning, when she asked why we already had our tree up if it wasn’t Christmas yet.

We bought our tree and decorated it on Friday. Auri chose it, and a grand job she did, too. Fortunately, Scapa has never been too interested in Christmas Trees other than sniffing them and paying attention to certain ornaments; unfortunately, she has no idea what her tail does at any given time, so there have been a handful of ornaments brought down already due to pre-walk excitement.

So, Croymas has certainly started! And it is a particularly special one this year. Crowmas will officially begin on the 23rd December, when we drive up to Stempster for a few nights. All in all, we have an exciting month ahead of us.

December 5, 2022
FacebookTwitterPinterestTumblrThreadsBlueskyEmail

Elosa

Take one Southern and one Northern. Throw in two determined (very) young women and their four-legged guardian and partner in crime. Immerse in the Highlands.

#ElmHunt #ElmWatch 2024 art Auri Autumn beach Black Isle books Caithness Christmas creativity dogs Elfi elm Euan fog food frost garden habits Highlands home house Lydia lyrics mushrooms news notebook Osa rain reading Scapa school Scotland seasons snow Stempster sun Tove Jansson trees walks weather woods writing

@2019 - All Right Reserved. Designed and Developed by PenciDesign


Back To Top
  • Home