Well this is the beautiful winter wonderland I woke up to this morning despite there not being a flake of snow last night. There presently is a good 8 inches plus of snow on the ground outside my door at the minute and its still snowing. This photo was taken at 7.30am and now here I sit at 9.47 still watching the big flakes fall.

As you can just about see from the photo I am on a main road where the gritters have helpfully decided not to visit which is obviously exactly what you need when you live in the bottom of a welsh valley! Therefore there are no buses either or deliveries to our local shop which is just out of view behind the flat opposite me (ie the bricked patch on the left of the photo) which I am thankful for plus its where I work and I still get employee benefits to a degree so when weather like this hits I can phone and ask for basics to be put aside for me to run over to collect which is particularly helpful with a small baby . Also just out of view to the right of that picture is a chip shop, a small off license, a pharmacy, a hairdressers and an opticians plus the doctors surgery is close enough I can see it from my living room window. So I've pretty much got all the basics covered in my little square acre.

Ben is obviously gutted not to be in school, he brought Christmas presents for his teacher and two helpers and spent last night wrapping them nicely only for the snow to close his school.

It has however made me realise that I am some-what unprepared for such an event like a snowfall. With the present location, I am in a welsh valley with 3 accessible roads. One of which is prone to landslides, one of which is a very steep hill into the village so rather lethal where ice and snow come and helpfully leads to a church and graveyard! and the third is a mountain road with no safety barriers! We also ~ transport wise ~ have one bus that runs to our village, and in the event that it is stopped then everything stops. Plus delivery trucks cant get through either leaving us totally separated from the outside world and basically rationed by the local shop.

The brave/fitter of us can walk to the nearest town which is a 45 minute walk away, luckily on the flat, but then you have the matter of getting your goods home which can be interesting. Luckily I own a dog and a sleigh. = )

I do think however that the rest of my day is going to be figuring out a stock cupboard, ie what I need to get, what would we use, what would be useful, where could I store it and then find prices to match. I may also need to take into account storage containers for dry items too as I don't seem to have any of them. How very un MSE of me!

Plus I think other household items that will need to be accounted are such things as nappies and milk for Holly, vitamins for all of us, and a stocked medical cabinet for each and every common ailment that we may have and possible repeat prescriptions ready as my partner Ow had a retinal transplant earlier this year so is on special medication and if he misses or runs out of drops the lens could reject and we are already on his third transplant!

Right that has given me something to think about today ~ thank you to Ceridwen on the MSE forums for the suggestions.

Looks lovely and festive though ~ oh wouldn't a White Christmas be nice.

Love,

Sammy

x