Paul has finally used his tractor to clear the drive. That wasn't until after I'd tried to drive my Micra out this morning. I got so far, slid and got stuck several times and finally decided to reverse back to the parking spot. I managed to damage the underneath engine cover which is now hanging down. I'll have to drive with it scraping the road to the handy repair shop just by the school to get it fixed. Parts of the drive this morning still had 18" of hard packed snow in the middle so I would never have made it out. Instead I set off on my daily walk and got a lift all the way down to Pilton from Ashelford Corner. Peter negotiated the icy drive in the afternoon and came to pick me up which was nice. He's left his car at the turning because parts of the drive are still very icy.
Everywhere else is all green apart from the fields around our house and the higher ground of Exmoor. (The top of the drive is more than 250m above sea level.) Back in Barnstaple the sun has been shining all day and first thing this morning I declared a 'sunshine break ' and took my class out, without coats, for some jogging and general exercise . They responded very well to playing with invisible skipping ropes and invisible balls and were puffing and panting nicely after 10 minutes.
With all this trudging up the hill and long walks through the snow I've not been doing my sit-ups but today I did very little extra walking so it was back to the 500 sit-ups. Got to keep up the exercise if I want to get fitter and (a bit) slimmer. I have enjoyed my early morning walks but it will be good to be able to get the shops and generally be mobile. Let's hope this is the last of the bad weather.
