Snow

Clapham Station

On Saturday we woke up to a winter wonderland.  After moaning about being the only part of the country without snow, finally we got ours.  It was a good 4 inches deep and very fluffy.  Unfortunately we had planned to go to the Railway Museum in York today as it was supposed to be a horrible grey day (how wrong could that be - it was glorious - deep blue sky).  We would have delayed it but Matt had arranged to meet up with a friend there to talk ITI stuff.  So away we went - the main road was OK, but when we hit the road to Clapham station it was deep in snow and the station car park was completely untouched.  I was very worried we wouldn't be able to get the car out again when we got back - this is a problem as Clapham Station is in the middle of nowhere.

We had checked the train was on time before we left.  However, it didn't turn up.  We called the signal box in Settle and they were surprised we hadn't seen it as they thought it had been and gone?!  It eventually turned up 25 minutes late.  The Guard on board asked us where we were going, when we told him he basically told us to give up as the train was going to get later and later.  We did.  We dug the car out and Matt did some nifty manoeuvring to get us out of the car park.  We then headed to Neptis for a coffee and chat before heading back home.  In all, I think we were all happy we didn't get the train, the snow looked far more fun.

Leia the snowman

First thing we did was build a snowman and through snowballs.  Tom enjoyed himself (we were wondering as he hasn't really enjoyed the snow in the past).  He named the snowman Leia (not sure why - he didn't look anything like her!) We then got the sledge out.  Last year he refused to go on it.  This year he was a little more receptive to it, but it still took him a couple of goes and some time watching Mummy and Daddy doing it to warm him up.  However, once he did it once, you couldn't keep him off it.  We started going down the track by the side of the house, not exactly steep but it acted as a good nursery slope.

Learning to sledge

We then went in for lunch.  Afterwards we decided to go into the field for better sledging.  Tom wouldn't go in to start with (he's a little scared of the sheep), so he climbed the gate and watched Matt and then watched me.  He was then ready to go into the field to watch from closer up.  Then he had a couple of goes with Daddy and then he was brave enough to do it himself.  He had a whale of a time, he LOVED it.  We took it in turns: Tom by himself, Tom with Daddy, Tom by himself, Tom with Mummy, Tom by himself with only sporadic chances for me or Matt to have a go by ourselves.  When we did he would run behind us.  He didn't just sit on the sledge, he learnt to steer it too - he looked quite the expert by the end of the afternoon.  He expended so much energy - we expected him to keel over at some stage and want to finish, but no, he just kept on going.  If it was up to him he would have spent all night out there as well.  We didn't have any food in for dinner (we were supposed to be eating out in York) so we headed out to Avanti for pizza for dinner.  A great day.

Quick video of Tom sledging:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dx9p1lBTVqg

Can you believe it when we woke up on Sunday, all the snow had gone!  Leia was still around, but she had lost her head and was looking quite poorly.  The field in which we were sledging had turned back to a bog with a pond.  How disappointing.  And it was raining.

We racked our brains on what to do today.  This area is wonderful in good weather, but hard work in the rain, there is very little indoor entertainment.  In the end we decided to go to Hawes to the Wensleydale Creamery.  We had a really good time, it was only £2.50 for the 3 of us (special offer).  The museum was small but informative, there was a video room and Tom happily went in and watched it. A huge leap for him - normally he would whinge (at best) or cry (at worse) when faced with a cinema set up.  I think maybe he might soon be ready for an outing to the cinema which is good.

We learnt loads, the Creamery almost went under a number of times, finally being saved by a management buyout in 1992.  Best of all we got to watch the cheese being made which I found very interesting (I always find factory processes very interesting - even when I worked in one)  I could have stayed and watched for hours, but the boys were getting hungry.  We headed back to the main building where there was a Cheese Room.  This was a fantastic room - full of tasters.  There was no hard sell, so you could eat as many of the samples as you wished.  This was a good ploy, it meant we tasted all of them and then ended up purchasing £22 of goods (some of that was beer I hasten to add).  If they had done the hard sell, we probably would have got one at the most.  The shop was great as well - full of Wallace and Gromit merchandise which looked good as well as loads of locally made things.

We then went for lunch in the coffee shop - cheese on toast for me and sausage rolls for the boys???!!!! Next time I think we will try the restaurant - every type of cheese dish you can think of: macaroni cheese, cauliflower cheese, rarebit, cheese burgers, cheesecake, jacket potato and cheese etc etc.  Anyway a good outing.  We then headed home and watched Curious George - Tom's favourite film - he choose it when we were all ill and loves it, he will sit still and watch the whole thing through by himself, he giggles at the funny bits and cries at the sad bits, he certainly follows the story - another reason why we think he is ready for a trip to a cinema.

Oh Tom's counting has become really good recently - he counted up to 28 without error the other day and recognises numbers up to 50, although he gets the 30s a little mixed up at the moment.  One of his favourite places to practise is Asda - he shouts out every aisle number with glee - shame they only go up to 38!