A winter wonderland

So Ian arrived safely back home in the UK after his luxurious flight over the Atlantic. His excuse to go back had been that his two football teams, Arsenal and Plymouth Argyle, had been drawn against each other in the 3rd round of the FA Cup. It's probably the only time in his lifetime that this game will happen, so he thought it was a valid reason to make the trip, and thankfully his old match mate got him a ticket. An expected win for Arsenal capped it all off.

Ian thought he'd be escaping the cold weather here in CT for a milder winter back home, courtesy of global warming and all that! But while he was there he probably suffered colder temperatures than those that were seen in New England. He seemed to be trekking around the UK to try and find the warmer weather, putting 1,108 miles on his hire car in the space of a week! From London he travelled to Manchester, then down to Plymouth and back to London again. Still he didn't find much above zero.

Annalie meanwhile has been trying to crack on with her final Masters assignments. she has one module assignment to complete and he dissertation. She's going to study one of the local airlines based at JFK and has received the all-clear from them that they are willing to grant her access to material, people and events that she needs to do a good job of her dissertation. She's also going to use the same airline as the basis for her other module so it doesn't quite feel like it's double the work right now, although she's sure it will become veery stressful over the next few weeks.

Before Ian came home, Annalie decided to make the most of her freedom by heading up to the ski house. She turned up on the Friday night with three of the others, only to be met by a freezing cold house as the gas tank had run out of propane. It was so bad that you could see your breath. Annalie took on fire duty, getting a log fire going to at least take the edge off the cold. Luckily the owner was able to get us an emergency supply of gas, but that didn't arrive and get started until 11pm, so it was still a rather frosty night.

Saturday was a hard day on the slopes with some good conditions but Annalie was the only boarder in the four and she was also the slowest, so it was a hard day's skiing all round. The guys she was with took her down some of the hardest terrain she's done this season, including a couple of double black diamonds - the hardest grade of slopes. She had to leave Killington early on the Sunday to head down to Boston to pick Ian up, so she hit the slopes by 8.30 on her own and managed a 3-hour stint. It had snowed a fair amount overnight, but the powder was awfully lumpy, so it as a killer on the legs to stay upright - but at least it didn't hurt when she fell over!

The journey to Boston was a lot more uneventful than the last one we made from Killington, when we went to pick Melly up. The roads were clear, despite the snow, so she was there in plenty of time. She was left waiting for quite a while though as we had our usual experience of putting golf clubs through Boston Airport. When we came out for our pre-assigment visit, Ian bought a set of golf irons that didn't make it back to the UK on the same flight as us. He got them a day later. This time, Annalie's mum had bought her a putter for Christmas, only that didn't turn up with Ian either. Luckily it was found and arrived with us on Monday. (Thanks Mum! ).

Upon his return, Ian got some fab news that he's been accepted into the Firefighter Academy so he can get his formal training That, by the way, is an image of Ian's face when he found out he'd been accepted! It's like a dream come true but it is a big commitment. Every Tuesday and Thursday evening and some Saturday mornings for five months. He takes his exams at the end of May, the same time that Annalie's dissertation is due in, so that will be a stressful time in this household!

The weather back here in the US has been varied but a true winter wonderland is evident. There have been snow and ice storms, but mostly the former, so the place is covered in white. We have got some more photos to show you but we just keep forgetting to download them. The best ones we have are of an adventurous squirrel that managed to climb up onto the deck (remember this is our first floor, not ground) in search of food during a big snow storm. We'd left some bread out for the birds, which Mr Squirrel made a bee-line for. Then he spied the full bird feeder. Up the post he went to try and get at it, but it was always just beyond the reach of his thieving paws Still, we returned home one day to find the bird feeder in pieces on the floor of the deck. Thankfully it's not broken and we've put it back out again, hoping that Mr Squirrel has gone into hibernation at last.

We've also been cultured this week as we went to the theatre with Dan and Fi, intrdoucing them to the delightful venues of Hartford! The Bushnell is actually a lovely theatre, but we usually sit in the balcony, which has enough leg room for a gnat! So you can imagine Ian's discomfort. We went to see Avenue Q, which is best described as Sesame Street for adults! There are some hilarious songs, which I won't recite in case there are children watching . Some things on stage were things that puppets simply shouldn't do but it was a great night. We started it off by discovering a decent curry house - which is a rarity in the States. We all had a good experience so I'm sure we'll be heading back there when we fancy an Indian, and at least we've now got somewhere we can take our visitors from the UK .

We've taken a weekend off from the ski house as it's another blackout weekend so we'd have had to pay for our lift tickets, and at $82 a day each, it's not cheap. Plus it gives Annalie's knee a chance to rest properly.