Enough is enough

The novelty of the snow has worn off. A White Christmas has long since lost it's appeal. It's starting to be a major inconvenience now.

The pipes to my washing machine have frozen, again. So I took a load of washing to mums today to discover the pipes to her washing machine had also frozen. I have discovered a laundrette about a mile away from home. I'm keeping their number handy.

We are using heating oil at the same rate Jamie Oliver uses goose fat this Christmas. Because the kids have had three extra days off school due to snow, and the fact that the temperature outside has not risen above minus something very low, the heat has been on in the house continuously. With the result we have about a third of a tank left, but unfortunately no one can deliver more until next week. Next Thursday to be precise. We had to embark on a mission to secure emergency barrels of oil today; as we need oil to run the heating and the range for cooking, Christmas day without it would be a complete and utter disaster.

Our bins have not been emptied. The bin lorry couldn't make it up our hill, although funny enough an oil tanker making a delivery to a well-organised neighbour managed it. Uh huh. As bins are emptied fortnightly, ours already contains two weeks worth of rubbish. We now have to try and squeeze in two more weeks worth. Of Christmas rubbish. And as two weeks takes us to the New Year holiday I'd say there's another two weeks to squeeze in on top of that and all.

The snow has induced panic buying. Not just the usual pre-Christmas panic buying, but a whole new level 'is the world coming to an end?' panic buying. I went to Tesco on Monday to buy some milk and butter and nearly got trampled to death by the masses, so in this house the motto now is if we don't already have it, we're not having it.

And finally, I am going out for dinner tonight. Instead of getting dressed up and donning a dress and heels, I am actually dressing down and have the look of someone setting out on an Arctic expedition. I am also taking extra clothes with me in case our hill is impassable due to further freezing and I have to walk up it at the end of the night. Never before have I gone out for dinner and taken a suitcase!

So, I say again ... enough is enough. Bugger off snow and let us enjoy our holiday. Thankyou