Our outside toilet is the beachy head of the mouse world

This is the third mouse to meet it's untimely end in our outside toilet... it looks as if it's alive with it's eyes wide open... but I can assure you it was as stiff as a board..... so off to the cesspit it went ..... either the mouse population is getting so desperate for a drink of water that they are throwing themselves into the toilet to quench their raging thirst OR and more likely they fall off the sink in the outside toilet which houses our dried dog food bounce on the rim of the toilet and splashdown into the freezing and inescapable toilet bowl....

By the looks of this one it didn't drown hence the fixed open eyed stare..... it simply just froze to death in the Arctic waters of our outside dunny .... and if you click on the picture to enlarge it you can see where several fleas have jumped ship ... only to drown themselves in the frigid water.... still like cute little mice do you ????




We are still in the grips of the big freeze here, as you can see with the picture above... we're that really white bit on the bottom left of the picture ;¬) and it seems we are going to get no let up....

Apparently we are going to get snowed on again on Sunday.... I'm actually starting to get fed up of the snow now.... it will be nice to wake up to a dreary wet morning.... instead of a white out... I'm sure the mouse population will breath a sigh of relief.... although I have no objection to the toilet "offing" a few of them in this cold snap :)

School's out ..... for Winter !!! (they wish)

<-- Andrea and Freya on the new Tesco value sledge .......(don't knock it, it goes like greased weasel poop)


Well the kids still haven't been back to school since the new year, Andrea had a brief spell back in school but it wasn't long after that the clouds dumped half of Greenland on us and she very nearly didn't make it home.... I managed a short trip out to the shops to get some essentials to tide us over but overnight it snowed again so we have about 4" outside which has now frozen solid...

but we had a good day sledging in our field on polythene and building snowmen and the deadliest of Daleks "Snovros".... We do have a massively steep field we can use but unfortunately the farmer put sheep in it, so we decided against whipping past a flock of sheep.... it would have taken sheep worrying to a whole new level ;¬) Freya wasn't too enamoured with her first day's sledging, probably because her wellies just didn't cut it frost and cold wise.... and we had to cut the visit short because of Freya's feet.... but undeterred we returned the next day and had Freya trussed up like a Formula one technician in a blue waterproof suit with more layers than an average onion... once she was warm enough (and practically nigh on impossible for her to walk....) it was hard to keep her in the house..... School of course was shut for another day ......


We have the heating up and it's just about coping with the cold snap..... you really appreciate it when you've been out sledging for a while and the warm blast hits you when you come in...... despite this Andrew still has a complete inability to shut any door behind him ... come to think of it wherever Andrew goes there is usually a trail of lights left on, Wii's, Computers, DSi's, plates, cups, sweet wrappers... but he is getting marginally better.... I'm convinced the beatings are working ;¬)

Anyway I'm off to flick the heating on for 5 minutes mainly to crack the frost on the radiators (copper pipe is expensive to replace if it bursts) ... and I can't stand the sound of kids crying themselves to sleep in the cold.... ;¬)

Just when you think everything is ok

Our borehole has frozen up again this is the second time since we have been here... I'm beginning to suspect that Al Gore's anthropogenic global warming is a load of hot air..... surely if the planet was warming up then Carmarthen would equally warm up or is Carmarthen in some kind of deep crater where sunlight doesn't shine and liquid nitrogen is a solid ????

So there I was this morning with my beany hat on and my borrowed gloves which were three sizes too small for my hands, unscrewing a 1" water pipe which wasn't playing ball at all.....and with all the grunting and swearing at these non moving alkathene pipe fittings, I of course forgot that the enormously empty tank in the loft was calling for water from the borehole pump 80 metres below ground ... (where hopefully the frozen ground hadn't reached it) .... I was right and just as I uncoupled the pipe it let me know by spraying freezing cold water all over me..... you haven't seen me run so fast across the skating rink of a driveway with legs flying up in the air with water dripping from my eyebrows as I fell into the out house to turn off the bore hole power supply..... the gush eventually slowed to a trickle then stopped....

I then had the task of removing the pipe fittings off the existing alkthene piping .... I don't know if you've ever felt alkathene water pipe (it's blue) but even in the hottest of summers it's easier to bend a car door than a length of alkathene piping.... needless to say when it's a few degrees below freezing it takes on the properties of a steel pipe.... with the help of a screwdriver I managed to prise off the fittings and put them on the "warmer" replacement pipe... I now have a space heater in the out house warming the above ground pipe which is solid with ice....

I only found that out by connecting the ice free "emergency" water pipe to the existing above ground piping switching on the borehole again ......only to hear it hiss loudly then come apart with the explosive force of a small hand grenade and whipping my left thigh as it lashed back (some people pay good money for that kind of treatment).... that's when I found out the other piping was solid with ice.... Oh Joy !!!

Yes we may have free water 365 days a year.... but I bet most householders don't have to run an external pipe across their driveways when a snowflake falls on their roof !!!

I've got a space heater in the out house now warming up the room..... I've also had the hair dryer in there in close contact with the pipe.... it's still creaking with ice ..... ah well time and several thousand kilowatts of electric heating will sort it out...... bugger ......that's another penguin fallen off it's melting ice perch in Antarctica .......

(20 minutes later)......

I've just come back from turning the bore hole back on and WHOOSH !!! the ice plug flew up the pipe and sploshed into the water tank RESULT !! running water... I've just got to keep it running now or the pipe will freeze again overnight !!!

The joys of living out in the sticks eh ?