A Winter Wonderland! (Maybe not). Saturday 2nd August 2025

Boy, did it snow. This is the heaviest snowfall in Armidale since the 1980's.

It started off fluffy, nice and pretty..

 It confused a Magpie.

 Then it didn't stop.

 We wouldn't have got out of the driveway.

I'm glad I am now retired as it would have been a nightmare trying to get nurses into town to work. 

Also getting them home from work. I imagine there were a lot of double shifts that weekend.

That's our red roof completely white.

The roads are all closed, people are stuck on highways.

THEN THE POWER WENT OUT!

We were lucky that ours was only off for several hours, but many people had no power for days.

There have been so many horror stories of older people stuck at home with no heating. 

THANK YOU to the poor essential energy people having to go out and do their best to fix things with impassable roads and in dreadful conditions. 

Hi my Mum's Dear Readers,

It's Miss Lizzy here to tell you how much I luvvved the snow!

It was sooo much fun.

At 4 o'clock, when we took Graham out for a play, 

he'd throw our toys and the toys disappeared into the snow!

I had to dig around to find it, snow flew around everywhere, hilarious!  

I got covered  in snow. Mum said I looked like a big snowball.

 

Teddy didn't like it, it was too close to his undercarriage.

 

Did you know that I think it is my job to monitor the goings on in the park next door?

 

When people visited the park to look at the snowy view 

I had to lope down the hill, barking, to let them know I was keeping an eye on them.

 

 

Then I found that the snow came up further than my leg pits and it was hard work getting back up the hill because I needed to jump through it.

 

I can eat snow, its a bit cold like ice cream, but tastes like water.
 

Until next time

Love and (cold) wet noses from

Miss Lizzy

 

I'll take the blog back now, thanks Miss Liz for your thoughts on the snow event.

You can see how heavy it was by how the tree branches are weighed down.

The trees that suffered the most were the pine trees, surprisingly for trees from the northern hemisphere huge trees just collapsed, in a concertina effect. What a mess and the whole town smelt like pine.

Wattles didn't fair well either, but the biggest damage was to the gums. Branches down everywhere. A lot of branches were just bent but when we had big winds a couple of weeks later huge limbs where crashing down. A month on its still bad, dying branches are everywhere.

Worse was damage to peoples roofs, gutters, collapsed sheds, the roads are a mess. Everything's a mess.It was just a total disruption to normal life.

Then Sunday morning all silence under a blanket of snow. (See first photo of the post as well).

It was gone by the end of the day and melted into great rivulets of water and slush.

 

 

Homeward bound - Thursday 29th May

 We were luckier than some. We had a late checkout and didn't need to leave the hotel until 2:30.

So we had a leisurely late breakfast in the most beautiful restaurant.

 Then it gave us a chance to repack our bags and change our clothes before our flight.

Three hours to Dubai in economy, I know why we don't do that anymore. But I did watch Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade..

More than a 5 hour wait in Dubai airport in the middle of the night.

Then a 13 hour leg to Sydney, this time in Premium Economy.

We arrived back in Sydney after 10pm on the Saturday night. Trying to get a taxi at 10 o'clock at night to take us 1/2 km to our hotel was not easy when you are both tired and cranky.

Flight home on the Sunday.

This epic adventure is nearly at an end with one last post coming soon.

 

 

The weather

All it does is rain. Not much summer this year.

And then we had hail.....

 Both V.Ws were damaged as well as the solar panels on the roof of the house.

Thank goodness for insurance, but we still had to pay the excess.

The roof of the deck now has holes but we were planning to replace it this year anyway.

~~~~~

The willow tree is also dying.

Here it is in 2025

 and below in 2017.

 It started dying in the drought and then was 

battered by the hurricane a few years ago and has never fully recovered. 

Spring!

 

Its spring, and with all the rain the garden is looking lush.

The front has matured and is bursting with flowers.

We have started the back but are really time poor to do to much.

The back garden is also so waterlogged that it is difficult to get the few plants we have put in established.

But Graham has got the birdfeeder up.

I don’t know what its ‘passenger limit’ is, but I have seen it take 10 sulphur crested cockatoos, if 3 stand on the roof.

Lizzie has grown up ( and grown round).

She is nearly perfect with her toileting now and has stopped eating things as much – such as the railings on the back deck, all the dog coats are gone, she rips them off Georgie's back, dog beds are eaten too.

She loves her Georgie,

and loves snuggles!

It got finished!

 

Finally after all our delays and dramas the kitchen is completely finished. With Graham installing the tin panel splash backs himself.

I’m very pleased with it and its a great cooks kitchen.

My big shiny Smeg oven, new curtains and my very pretty and cheap lamp shades.

And for anyone that scratched their head and wonder why I would dispose of a perfectly functional and only 4 year old kitchen please take note of the before and after shots below!

 

Next job is the 2nd garage and new deck project.

Snow!

 

WE HAD SNOW!!!!

on, Monday 13th July and Friday 17th July.

I can’t remember a good snowfall like this since we were at the farm back in the 90’s.

But…Why did it have to be on a workday?

I hate driving in snow.

Although on the Monday (when I took these photos) it was heavier here on the edge of town. Hardly any snow at work… (We are higher than work).

But on Friday it was heavy everywhere.

Good fun driving to work in a car covered in snow!