birthday snow

I have been moving house and so have no internet at home and no time to do anything but unpack boxes and wonder where to put all the stuff. It is remarkable how much stuff you still have, even after that pre move blitz. However, today is my darling daughters birthday so I am up in York, rather than down on the south coast and so have access to her internet while I wait for her to get dressed (usually a lengthy process (Oi!!! said Jen)), so we can visit the Christmas Market together and go OOoooohh at all the lovely things for sale.
I was amused during my delicious guest house breakfast this morning by a pair of Australians, visiting the UK and planning to drive to Edinburgh  today. I guess they just don't do snow in the same way down in Oz; there was a collective "whaaaaat" from the other breakfasting guests, at which they looked, it has to be said, a little crestfallen. Now this is what the world looks like outside Jen's window, I could hear the ice cracking under my feet as I walked up the road through several inches of fresh snow.

It is still snowing and there is travel chaos across the country. I suspect I may be seeing them at breakfast tomorrow as well, poor souls.

So what did she get for her birthday from me? Well, some cash - always useful to impoverished students, a little cat ornament to sit and smile by her computer because she misses our two, some chocolate, utterly necessary and these

also useful in this weather in the frozen north. I finished them on the train on the way here (NO I didn't try driving up!!) and sitting in my guest house room last night, the second pair of socks I've knitted. I wasn't sure they were going to be done in time!! So now she has toasty feet, which is a Very Good Thing.

Hope the trains are running when I go home tomorrow!!