Arwen's meanderings

Hi everyone and welcome to my dinghy cruising blog about my John Welsford designed 'navigator' named Arwen. Built over three years, Arwen was launched in August 2007. She is a standing lug yawl 14' 6" in length. This blog records our dinghy cruising voyages together around the coastal waters of SW England.
Arwen has an associated YouTube channel so visit www.YouTube.com/c/plymouthwelshboy to find our most recent cruises and click subscribe.
On this blog you will find posts about dinghy cruising locations, accounts of our voyages, maintenance tips and 'How to's' ranging from rigging standing lug sails and building galley boxes to using 'anchor buddies' and creating 'pilotage notes'. I hope you find something that inspires you to get out on the water in your boat. Drop us a comment and happy sailing.
Steve and Arwen

Saturday 18 December 2010

yep - it got worse......but why is it we grind to a halt over a few inches?

It did snow again last night as I predicted and we woke to a couple of inches. Being on a north facing slope means the snow doesn't clear - we don't get much sunshine in winter because we are at the immediate foot of a high hill. The valley across from us gets the sun and over there everything turned to slush pretty quickly.

Actually I got up at three in the morning and this was the scene under our street light


The view from our porch across the valley to our local parish church which dates back to the 12th century , if I remember correctly. This was at 8.30am this morning


And poor old Arwen under her tarp's at the same time


We do seem to grind to a halt and the whole transport infrastructure seems to go into chaos with only a few inches of snow. I guess we just can't afford to invest in the snow clearing equipment we need for times like this - when these times may only happen once very few years.


And the view along our road at 9.10am - its quite exciting really

Still, it won't last for Christmas - there is a thaw setting in the south west of England - sometime later next week. It has been fun. I love that 'blanket of quiet' that descends when snow covers the land; and the lack of traffic noise that normally wafts up from the main road in the valley below.

I expect this will be my last post before Christmas - so I take this opportunity to say 'Merry Christmas and Happy New Year' to all those followers of 'Arwen's Meanderings'. May 2011 bring you happiness and prosperity and thank you for taking the time to pay us a visit this year.

Steve