The snow of last week had cleared away quite rapidly. Once we were able to drive up to Porter Springs Road, we found things much less frozen over than down in the woods. So much so that on Sunday, we went for a drive through the country, bought a few soupbowls at a local pottery, Mark of the Potter and generally enjoyed ourselves. There were many trees down (and roads cleared of the resulting debris just enough to be safe – the complete clear-up is going to take weeks, if not months).
But this bright weather was not going to last. Fortunate (or sensible), we had stocked up on essentials before a second forecast round of snow and ice blocked the driveway again. And the second blizzard was in many ways worse than the first. The snow started coming down on Tuesday afternoon, and rapidly blanketed the ground. And with all the previous snow melt, it rapidly created a nasty underlying layer of ice. We knew that we were not going anywhere, and just hoped that the electricity would not go out this time around. We were fortunate about that – we had no interruptions. But our sympathies lay with other people in the county who were still powerless from the first storm. There was no prospect of escape – Lisa tried to drive out on Friday and got about a third of the way up the drive before having to admit defeat and carefully back down again. I made a daily trip up the drive on foot to check the mail and observe how almost everything was clear in the outer world. We are obviously living in a real snow pocket!
One slightly disturbing thing this week was my nose. On Sunday I was sitting quietly, when I suddenly became aware of blood trickling down my face. A bit like something out of a horror movie. No apparent reason for it, it just starting flowing. I managed to avoid making too much mess and staunch the flow using traditional remedies. The nosebleed recurred almost every day, again for no apparent reason, and we were starting to get a bit concerned. Asking friends about this brought several reports of similar things having happened to others – apparently the drying impact of forced air central heating causes the delicate inside of one’s nose to crack!