The weekend before Thanksgiving we had a tremendous cold snap. The temps in our valley never rose above freezing and we had frost on top of frost for five nights. Here's a picture I took:
The frost finally disappeared a couple of days before Thanksgiving, but it came back with snow on the day after the holiday. It was quite pretty and white when we woke up on Friday. And it put the whole town in a festive spirit for the Lighting of the Christmas tree in the town square on Saturday night. There was a childrens "fun-fair" consisting of some swings, a tombola and a roundabout; a parade led by the local fire engine, Bob the Builder and one of the Telly Tubbies, and carol singing in the square.
On Sunday, Church Stretton had its annual Christmas Fayre with stalls in various locations around the town, along with a hog roast outside one of the local restaurants, mince pies and mulled wine at the Scout Hut and various puddings (desserts) at the community center. The grand finale was a short service in the Church followed by a lantern/candle lit parade around town with stops for the singing of carols.
Since then, the weather has been slowly warming and getting wetter and over the last 2 days we've had a lot of rain. Of course, our little stream is swollen again and this time it was blocked by a branch which was collecting debris and starting to form a dam. This afternoon I donned wellies and rain-coat and went paddling in the ice cold stream to get the rubbish out of it. I don't think it would have flooded and I could have left it for a day or two, but it was actually fun to get into the water and do a bit of engineering!
Well, that's enough about the weather. I think I'll just do one more post.
