Snow, Ice and Yet More Snow

Winter has totally hit us, and we've been snowed in for about 2 weeks now. Nothing really unusual in that to be honest but the temperatures here plummetted and were below -20 degrees c for quite a while, making any outside jobs truly miserable. The whole of Eastern Europe is in the midst of a polar winter and parts of Bulgaria are snowbound, roads closed and without power, while others are flooding terribly. This winter has been declared to worst in 100 years.

So far we've had snow, then a day of thawing, followed by more snow, freezing rain and snow again, falling heavily for the last 2 days. The animals are bored being cooped up and the cat has taken to sitting on the hall radiator to warm himself up - between shouting for food, sleeping on the sofa or screaming for attention! He's even learnt how to open the bedroom door and gave us both a fright a couple of nights ago when he appeared hanging on the door handle! He's been called a few names lately but I won't post them here to be polite.

Hubby's off to the Uk at the weekend, only for a week but I'll be alone with the animals. I've had a short dose of flu but am feeling better today and we finally managed to get out and do a small shop yesterday, stock up on dog food and pay a few bills. I was really quite worried that the internet would be cut off as it's one of the bills we can't pay in the village and I knew it was overdue.

According to the Bulgarian news this polar winter will last until 20th February and then the temperatures should rise and stay above zero. Let's hope it gently melts the snow, otherwise we'll be waterlogged - even living almost on the top of a hill we have flooded once. Luckily we've managed to add more drainage ditches at the top of the garden so they should help drain water away from the house.

Heere's hoping spring is soon here and work on the garden can start again :)