get together

 He who shall not be named (first born) brought his family back to the UK for a brief visit which gave us all a chance to catch up.

 MBAOSPW

 Abbi and Maddy

 RRMK2

 MBAOSPW and Maddy

 The boys

 Abbi Maddy

 The Godfather

 Jacob and the boys

Lovely lady.

The Night Stalker

 Bala our increasingly senile Romanian rescue caused the pulse to rise several times by wandering off 4 times last night and when found refusing to move in a homewardly direction.

The 5th escape was more successful in that he was missing all night and was found at breakfast time half a mile away trying to get scraps off The Oracles birdtable. Who says you cant teach an old dog new tricks.

Get some in

 Having so many mouths and so little grass we have to stuff money or hay into their mouths.

 Hence this big load dumped in the yard for yours truly to put safely away from the ravages of

 little shitlands like Trevor.

It took a while but at least it wasn't raining. 

Little monsters

 See how they have grown.

Ready in two weeks. Now all we have to do is find 6 families for them :)

Losing it

This is a very old Romanian sheepdog called Bala. Currently safe at home after spending a night on the mountain. Senile old gent wanders off if allowed and gets lost. Found him this morning in The Oracles garden trying to get scraps off the birdtable. Who says you cant teach an old dog new tricks.

Russian nightmares

 These are 15mm Russian Hussars.

 The Pavlograd Hussars, a famous regiment.

A complete nightmare to paint. But finally they are finished. Apart from basing them properly.

Breakout

 Beautiful sunrise on day three of snow fest 17

 and as we had run out of essential supplies, like milk and bacon we had to breakout and reach civilisation.

 Under a beautiful sky yours truly toiled to dig Eep out as Stan has to wait for new brake pads to arrive which are somewhere out there in failed delivery land.

 Pretty

 soon Eep was strutting her stuff and managed to get along our lane, some parts were a case of sledging but we made it to the road.

 The Oracle wasn't out and about

 but I checked to see if they wanted any supplies. He unlike me had been prepared and had lots of cow juice and bacon rashers.

 Pausing only to take an amazing car advert type pic

 we bravely battled to work to find...only one other person there.

This is the main road into town. Cutbacks mean no snow clearing. The trip back laden with goodies was a bit tense but after 14 attempts Eep made it back up the lane to Rock HQ where the children were happy that they could now have cereal instead of real food.

Tough climb

 Yours truly has been to the summit of the bonsai mountain countless times

 and so with this thick layer of white stuff

 it would be rude

 not to make a summit attempt

 once all the fun and games had been done

 and jobs finished.

 Which is why yours truly plus K9's are struggling in waist deep snow 50 metres from the summit.

 The plan was to make it to watch the sun set

 but the snow had other ideas.

 This is the border between the shire and Wales

 and Rio shows how deep it is getting.

 Across the shire the sun set glowing

 but the snow is now almost 3 foot deep and powder quality meaning you have to wade through

 The final section to the summit almost finished me but I was not going to admit defeat and managed to dig my way to the top.

20 minutes late, but job done.

Its here!

 Rug Rat Mk2 has never seen the white stuff so it was quite nice to wake up to this sunday morning.

 We have had a few years without snow so it was obviously making up for it by dumping more than we have ever had in one go.

 By the end of play it was still snowing and well over 12 inches had fallen.

 Naturally the dogs enjoyed what they were made for.

 RRMK2 was ok about it all and was desperately keen to make snow angels.

 Which he did like a pro

 along with the apprentice

 and MBAOSPW joined in.

 Rocky posed for pics

 looking amazing

 and showing how heavy it was snowing.

 Winter wonderland everywhere we looked.

 Mr Bear plodding on

 Daffodil and Petal hiding

 Rocky Racing along

 discovering his inner puppy

 They needed their wooly jumpers hahahaha

 Tasha, Bryn and Rio

 Racing

 Apollo and Trevor

 Rio

 Stan under 16 inches of snow

 Sven, Holly, Reuben and Noel

 same again

 Bala the old.

 Once the novelty of freezing to death had worn off it was time to construct the gingerbread house for Christmas

 Judging by the bulging cheeks of RRMK2 the sampling is going well.

 Tricky bit...

Complete...it lasted 4 hours before they demolished part of it.