8 Denby Lane

Heaton Chapel

empty house (2009) ◊ moving in (2009) ◊ winter (2009) ◊ furnished (2010) ◊ gardening (2010) ◊ decorating (2010) ◊ decorating (2010 to 2014) ◊ gardening (2011 & 2012) ◊ landscaping (2012 & 2013) ◊ gardening (2013 & 2014)

Winter (2009)

And on 18th December 2009, a week before Christmas, there was a smattering of snow (little did we know, eh), which gave me a chance to take some pictures of how the garden looked with a uniformity of whiteness.  It looks a little ghostly.

Here is the front, with our nicely coating with icing sugar.

During the weekend before Christmas, the heavens opened once more to coat the garden with a thicker layer of snow.

Fancy a seat?  Thought not.

A wintery shot of the garden - compare and contrast with the garden photo on the first Denby Lane page.

It wasn't really the time for the allotment (could grow frozen peas, maybe).  Look!  The onion sign is slowly getting buried!

More snowy shots.  Of the back...

...and the front.

The next day (Sunday 21st), once the snow had settled, it was time for some more photos.  Unfortunately, Lynne had flu and so was unable to join me in some snowball fights.  Disappointingly, the street was also devoid of children engaging in such activities so my iced missile desires went unquenched.

I wasn't the first one out there, though, as this evidence of a feline presence showed.

The onion sign in the allotment was almost invisible.  No vegetables here!  Move along please!

But that wasn't it.  There was more.  By Christmas Eve, further snow arrived...

The onion sign was almost totally submerged by now.

This is not the weather for a greenhouse.

Meanwhile, we eventually set up a Christmas tree in the hall.  I had purchased one that was perhaps a little too large and, as a result, almost took over the hall

Aside from the tree and some Christmas cards, this was pretty much our only other Christmas decoration.  We preferred the minimalist approach.

So that was that for now.  Christmas Day itself was still snow-white from the previous days' fall.  My trip to pick up the Barlows was beset by fog, and rain on the evening of Christmas Day turned Waterdale Close into an ice slope, no more apparent than when the taxi began to slide off with Aunty Janet in there.  Luckily it was retrieved before any damage was done.

Between then and the New Year, there was little further snowfall (not in the North of England anyway), and by the first weekend in January, we were actually able to see the grass on the back garden for the first time in a long time (just over three weeks).  It wasn't over, though.  On the evening of Monday 4th January, after an uneventful first day back at work, the heavens opened like never before.  This was from around 12.30am that night.

With a moon that was apparently close to being full, and the white ground, the night time was eerily light.

This looks like dawn but in actual fact it was more like half past midnight.  With just blinds and no curtains in the main bedroom, this made it difficult to sleep (or was that the excitement of more snow).

The next morning, it was apparent that there had been some serious snowfall, the most I had seen in quite some time (read as "ever" since any memories of childhood snow are probably wildly inaccurate).  The vast amount of snow that had been retained on top of the plum tree's branches was amazing.

Everything was well and truly buried.

Lynne was the first to venture out the front, or should that be Big Foot?

From my point of view, this was a Good Idea, since I could find out about transport reliability from Lynne first hand without having to venture from the warm lounge, especially with the England vs South Africa Test match on.  Eventually, though, I headed out - this was evidently the path Lynne had trod/followed, since there were few people out at that time (8am).

It was a lovely walk to the train station.  Not only was it beautifully picturesque, as can be seen from the two photos below, but also serenely peaceful.  There was a distinct and untypical lack of activity at that time and any noise was muffled by the big white blanket that enveloped everything and everywhere.  This is the view up and down the road running alongside the train tracks (albeit at a sub-level).

We got to the station to find out that there already train problems.  Lynne had waited there for quite some time and the train that did finally arrive was too full to let many people on.  The next train was already delayed and with the platform slowly filling with (for now) patient commuters, we decided that this wasn't going to work.  Rather than stand around in the cold, we headed back home to plan our next move.

We considered driving in, but reports from Manchester suggested that that was a bad idea - the centre of town was a mess.  The journey may well have been treacherous.  And we would have to do a fair bit of digging in order to even get the car going.  (Normal colour: oceanic blue.)

After a while (an hour and a half or so), we decided that we would try the trains again.  The A6 was eerily quiet, enabling me to take shots like these without fear of fast-moving vehicles.

And Lynne, with her superior footwear, made better tracks en route to the station.  Of course, I was also pausing for photographs, which slowed my pace somewhat.  But mostly I was making sure I didn't fall onto my backside.

That weekend, nothing much had changed, which obviously enabled plenty of photo shootery.

The true guide, as ever, was the onion sign in the allotment.  Um, what onion sign?

In other news, our greenhouse had grown a 'tache!

More spectacular was the slow build-up of icicles on the window overhangs.

More icicles, at the front and back of the house.

And that was that.  Just over five weeks after the snow had first come, it finally disappeared.  It was fun while it lasted.  No, that's not true.  It was fun at first, but slowly tried people's patience, as the pavements turned into icy death traps and the transport system ground to a halt.  When temperatures remained stubbornly sub-zero for a few days, trains just didn't work so we had to resort to getting the bus into town (which wasn't actually that bad given the reduced traffic on the roads).  Slowly but surely, we got back to normal.

So it's back to taking pictures of the furnished house.  They will come, don't worry.

Right, it took me a while, but click here for some photos of a well-furnitured house.