Snow

Cold linguists

On Thursday night we got snow!!!!!  It had been forecasted so all week, so no surprise and very exciting.  We didn't have time to enjoy it after school on Friday as we were busy preparing for yet more guests - this time Andrew and Fabian - a translator friend of Matt's who headed over with his 10 year old son for a translator's walk Matt had organised for Saturday around Ribblehead.

I hadn't met either of them before, but Andrew was so laid back and easy to get on with that it really was no effort at all to converse with him.  Fabian and Tom hit it off instantly too!  As we were all getting to know each other Janine came over for a drink and before I knew it we had got through 2 bottles of mulled wine and it was getting quite late.  

Tom and Fabian slept in Tom's room, once again with little fuss - both of them being tired.  They chatted for about half an hour and then fell asleep.

Snow Angel

Saturday morning, football was cancelled, so Fabian and Tom headed over to the Community field and went sledging on the banks.  There was just about enough snow on it for it to work and they got up some good speeds.

12pm saw us at Ribblehead meeting up with 12 other translators for a walk around Ribblehead. The Dales was looking at its absolute best: deep blue sky and snow on the ground.  It wasn't windy at all which is really unusual.  The walk went well, although the snow meant that the boys were distracted 100% of the time, wanting to play in the snow rather than walk.  They did make it round, but there was a lot of extra steps taken, jumping in the snow etc etc.

Chapel-le-Dale church

In the end the front group had to speed up to make the afternoon train on time.  Fabian and Andrew were in the front group and Tom was at the back - having had a huff about cold feet (complaining about cold feet, but refusing to wear more warm socks - the usual young child not listening to sense thing that can be so frustrating!)  He then realised that he might not be able to say goodbye to Fabian and Andrew as they were so far ahead and the train imminent.  This meant that he had a toddler type tantrum for a good half hour.  He kept stopping to cry that he wouldn't be able to say goodbye to them.  No amount of explaining that the longer he stopped to cry, the less likely he would be to be able to say goodbye worked.  I ended up pretty much dragging him crying to the station and got there with about 30 seconds to spare before the train came!  Fabian said goodbye, but Tom was too far past it to be placated.  

Oh hum, we went to the pub to see everyone else and have a drink, then home, tea and early to bed.