40 degrees north
On Tuesday night we thought we were a lot further north than forty degrees, the wind was howling, the snow was 'falling' in horizontal bands to be met by the swirling frost filled gusts on their way back up into the air. Snow shoes, goggles and full on Arctic clothing was required simply to get to the gate and back, filling the log basket was really seriously not fun. AW took 10 minutes to get up the hill out of the village on her way back home, HB had to hold onto Miss B to stop her being blown away on their way back home from a music competition in town (KMB was in second place for her violin recital, one very proud mum).
We had sightings (and soundings) of the first avian summer visitors, the first curlew was seen flying over the field in front of the office on Monday and was heard again on Tuesday. Pied wagtails have been seen in and around the village too and the woodpeckers must be getting headaches by now the amount of drumming they've doing, it really echoes off the snow! The large long tailed tit groups have broken up and we have a paid which visits regularly and another which is seen occasionally.
Thinking of summer (more like dreaming) it's holiday season here at CJS, TB has been away to sunny Spain this week continuing her recovery from her broken elbow. Next week it's KH's turn, it was supposed to be for some genuine gardening leave but as the flower beds are still under several inches of snow I have a feeling that not much gardening is going to be done however there is a tin of brand new drawing pencils and a small stack of pristine paper just waiting to be used. Then it's Easter week and after that HB at last gets a well earned 'rest' or at least a week away from CJS to catch up with everything else going on in her hectic schedule.
We were dismayed by the notice posted yesterday on google reader, the service is being discontinued from July. It's one of our main news aggregators and we use it for a few job searches too. Apparently we're not the only ones. Like everyone else we've been looking at alternative RSS readers, so much so most of them have crashed under the unprecedented loads.
And last but not least details on Monday's edition of CJS Weekly. 18 pages including the Training Calendar for May, 15 adverts for volunteers and 41 for paid posts, 30 of which came direct to CJS.
We had sightings (and soundings) of the first avian summer visitors, the first curlew was seen flying over the field in front of the office on Monday and was heard again on Tuesday. Pied wagtails have been seen in and around the village too and the woodpeckers must be getting headaches by now the amount of drumming they've doing, it really echoes off the snow! The large long tailed tit groups have broken up and we have a paid which visits regularly and another which is seen occasionally.
Thinking of summer (more like dreaming) it's holiday season here at CJS, TB has been away to sunny Spain this week continuing her recovery from her broken elbow. Next week it's KH's turn, it was supposed to be for some genuine gardening leave but as the flower beds are still under several inches of snow I have a feeling that not much gardening is going to be done however there is a tin of brand new drawing pencils and a small stack of pristine paper just waiting to be used. Then it's Easter week and after that HB at last gets a well earned 'rest' or at least a week away from CJS to catch up with everything else going on in her hectic schedule.
We were dismayed by the notice posted yesterday on google reader, the service is being discontinued from July. It's one of our main news aggregators and we use it for a few job searches too. Apparently we're not the only ones. Like everyone else we've been looking at alternative RSS readers, so much so most of them have crashed under the unprecedented loads.
And last but not least details on Monday's edition of CJS Weekly. 18 pages including the Training Calendar for May, 15 adverts for volunteers and 41 for paid posts, 30 of which came direct to CJS.