Nutty as a Fruitcake

As promised by the vigilant weather forecasters yesterday, we woke up to several inches of snow. As we live of a hill, which never gets gritted or salted, everyone had a snow-day today. Luckily I can work from home with broadband and mobile access, but my beloved was forced to play Assassin 2 all day. Shame.

My Beloved did check to see the feasibility of his commute a couple of times before it was obvious he, and everyone else, were not going anywhere.

Breakfast was pre-soaked oats with banana, dates, cinnamon and chopped candied almonds. Served with a lovely hot cup of tea.

I spent the first half of the morning rearranging all my appointments, having a dialed in meeting and going through some project data with one of my project managers. The oats sustained me beautifully.

Lunchtime was a hurried affair between meetings. Some homemade Parmesan and tomato bread, crisp dry cured smoked bacon grilled, with tomato ketchup. Perfect on a cold snowy day.

After I finished work this afternoon I went and cleared all the snow from my car, before it froze into an unbreakable thick shell. I also cleared the road in front of the car and around the types.

I had a chat with my daughter, Zoe, this afternoon to check if she was OK. She lives in an even more remote village closer to her work. She tried to get to work in her little Peugeot 106 this morning, but lost the back end on the downward part of a hill and ended up in a hedge. She and the car are OK, but she had to leave the car at the side of a side road and walk back to her village, as she couldn’t get the car up the other side of the hill. She was worried about abandoning the car, but it is pulled in to the side of the road, and there is room for a car to get past.

Somehow we have got to reunite her with her car tomorrow, and hopefully get ourselves out on to the roads too. This will sound silly to our US and Canadian bloggers, but snow is so rare here that the civic response is woefully inadequate.

Dinner was a pasta dish. While cooking spaghetti, I sautéed onion, mushrooms and celery in some olive oil until translucent. I added some cooked chicken and olives and cooked for another 5 minutes, adding a splash of vermouth at the end. Draining the pasta, I stirred in some Sacla Aubergine Pesto, and the cooked vegetables and chicken and served with a sprinkling of caerphilly cheese. ( The lovely dessert is a Cherry and White Chocolate cheese cake, from our dessert selection box and is to appease the inner nutta).