A comment on the weather

It has at last stopped raining and or/ snowing. However this part of Deeside wasn't dumped on quite as much as some of the inland areas. I can, in fact, testify from experience that on Thursday, the Lecht had it considerably worse than anywhere down here. What with them being at 2090ft n'all. It was Jnr's first experience of snow too - we climbed the flanks of Carn a Bhacain and Mona Gowan towards our goal (bacon and egg softie in the ski centre) and all he could say was 'oh NO!' as some invisible and unknown hand lay a thick white blanket over his still new world. Even more so when he felt the hurricane force winds lash tiny particles of frozen ice at his yet unweathered face as we raced a blizzard the final 20ft to our destination.

On Friday we were intending to hunt down more of the white stuff but got waylayed in a nationwide hunt for spice racks (please, don't ask). As the afternoon wore on however, we unwittingly found ourselves part of the Find the Worst Flooded Road in Scotland competition. We won by finding some definitely unclassified roads over moorland during one of our 'shortcuts' and the heaviest rain in years. Rain and floods turned to snow and ice the higher we got. It was very pretty but my mind was elsewhere. Our septic tank, which has been playing up, be precise. And lo, by the time we reached home, the drains were as we suspected, overflowing. Being married to an engineer is very handy especially when they disappear into their shed and reappear with pumps and things to disperse the rapidly overflowing drains. Thirty minutes, some jubilee clips, a few hoses and a compressor later we were free to flush the toilet again!

Meanwhile, Jnr is taking this rain seriously and is taking steps to protect himself against floods and falling trees.