What a palaver

We got out using a collection of tractor, home made snow plough, 4x4 on the bit that used to be a road and finally on to the main road which was gritted but still iffy.

We saw a lovely lady doctor and she thoroughly checked the little one - he loved it and was fascinated with the stethescope and a 'crocodile' gizmo which reads oxygen levels from your finger.
He has croup from a viral source and the entire family, being cooped up inside for days, have now also gone viral.
Our son has been given a steroid but we were warned that there was a potential of hyperactivity and hallucinations from the medicine.....
He seems fine just now, pinging out of his 'cave' that he made from the sofa cushions, giggling, offering us all tea from the tiny tea set and to paraphrase my Granny, "There's nothing coming ower that laddie".

   I suspect it will be a different story in the middle of the night when the coughing starts.

How strange to be in town and it was overwhelming being amid the throng.
The shops seemed to have everything you could ever want. We bought shop bread and pies then ate them in the car then stocked up on fresh fruit and vegetables as I was convinced we would get scurvy without them.
It got a bit overwhelming, all the activity, so we headed home but for a while, I forgot that things were bleak and filthy there.

When we returned, there were two men up who came to fix the water. I was horrified as they had climbed in a window to access the mains and entered my 'burach' room. Burach is a good Gaelic word which describes something far worse than a mess.....
The upshot is that the waterpipe could be frozen anywhere within a quarter of a mile and the ground is frozen hard. The temperature outside was minus 7 at 4pm and dropping.
We are back to filling the tank in the loft with melted snow and so grateful for the miserable little dribble which comes out of the hot tap.

I'm trying to persuade my husband to stay in a B&B tomorrow night but he is loathe to leave the farm whilst there is calving. Looks like it might just be the children and I and it  will be wonderful.

This is a big old barn of a house with lots of funny shaped rooms and tonight it is very cold. We have heated our daughter's bedroom and our own. (Little one's bed is in our room)
The kitchen and living room are warm but the rest of the house is unheated. It is not for the want of trying to heat it, but the walls are damp and uninsulated and the windows are not double glazed so every morning it is very cold again.
There are real fireplaces in almost every room but the chimneys are unsafe so we cannot light the fires. It is such a pity as I had a real fire in my bedroom as a child and loved the flickering light and noise of the coal whispering. Granny said that everyones secrets used to come down  chimneys and the coal would 'tell'.

We are all in now, warm, safe and fed.
Today was a trauchle but it is nearly done. We have one caualty of the cold - one of our older cows. My husband is very vexed and in a dilemma as the animal removal service is refusing to come up to the farm.
We covered the cow but I saw that her eyes were frozen into an unseeing gaze and I felt as if she could see things now that were way beyond our ken.