Strange bird

More snow this morning, and since we hadn't been watching the forecast closely, it came as a bit of a surprise. Mind you, having been awake most of the night listening to the raindrops, then the absence of raindrops, it shouldn't have been a surprise to me. TallGirl was out early feeding the birds - PJs in the snow is not a look to warm a mother's heart - but it certainly seemed to lure in some new visitors. A pair of bramblings which we've never seen round here before. I did briefly wonder if it might make the blip bird list, but alas I am one day too late! They seemed very bold and had no problem dealing with this sunflower seed with me very much in sight through the window.

The kids predictably went outside and got absolutely soaked in the snow, and then, equally predictably, the sun came out and the melt began. Unfortunately this made a whole load of snow slip off our roof and onto our gazebo... from which we had failed to removed the fabric roof... So now we have a slightly lower roof than before. But still, we don't need that until it gets really hot in May, so plenty of time to fix it.

In other news, there was more marmalade making, leading to the second strange bird of the day. Me. We don't actually eat very much marmalade (though I think I might have to start) so I think my family are a bit concerned that this is only phase two of my plan to conquer the world through marmalade making. Today was blood orange marmalade - resulting in two large and four small jars, three of the small ones flavoured with whisky for a bit of variety.

Probably more marmalade action tomorrow, since the cement on the beam has not sufficiently dried for us to be able to take the props out and start work on beam two. Oh, what a shame, I thought as Mr B broke this to me earlier. Meanwhile my muscles yelped in joy.