These past few days have seen us travel across Europe and up and down the UK – I didn’t keep track of the miles we covered, but it’s been a lot! Late on Thursday afternoon we watched the view of Athens and the Greek coastline get replaced with snow covered alpine mountains.

Out of Manchester Airport and along the North Wales coast, eventually got us back to The Cottage at around 20:30 on Thursday evening – we didn’t even bother to get the fire lit, instead we just about had the energy to unload the car, pack a bag for the following day, then crawl into a very cold bed!

Less than 12 hours later, I was back out the door and heading to Llandudno for a staff training day (while Clare was running some online training) and later that afternoon, Clare picked me up, and with a fresh set of clothes packed in the back, we headed north to Newcastle…

We made it to Andy and Jonelle’s in time for dinner and Cece had stayed up to welcome us in. Over the weekend, we had a great time catching up, and seeing some of the local area and it’s birdlife!

The drive back south on Sunday night went in a blur and we arrived back to find The Cottage encased in frost and ice, with temperatures inside dipping to an all time low – last time it was this cold in The Cottage was when we’d just moved in and were renovating. Back then we had single glazed windows, no central heating and had yet to get the stove installed!

Happily, we now have all the above and wasted no time in trying to get the place warmed back up!

Today (Monday), despite having plenty of work that needed to get done, neither of us had to move too far from The Cottage. The car has stayed on the drive and the fire has been going all day and night and we’re almost unpacked from what’s been about a month away from home! The low winter sunlight was casting a nice light through the trees, but there wasn’t much warmth from it!

In the mountains, the tops have had a dusting of snow and it sounds like there will be more on the way this weekend. Hopefully, we’ll be warmed up and rested enough by then to enjoy it!