Beware! Small furries!

Morning all,
An innocent foray into the pantry the other day resulted in me finding not a bar of chocolate I'd forgotten about, not an extra bottle of vintage blackberry gin.........but a very obvious, particularly fresh-looking MOUSE POO!! Oh joy! Another run-in with the local furries. I have no fear of rodents, so turned out the pantry, in full-on mouse detection mode. I don't know how you spent that morning, but I spent it collecting & counting mouse poo. Eight. Hmmm. That's ok, as it would indicate that this is just the advance party. Probably one brave individual having a quick skank through the air brick to see if we've any decent biscuits in.

Despite growing up in the country, I can't recall ever seeing a single solitary mouse indoors (apart from the two pet ones I illicitly had off a class mate which lived in the bottom of my wardrobe until Grandma grassed me up). It was received wisdom in our family that rats lived under Grandad's shed, but despite sitting outside, aged 4, waiting & watching for ages, I never saw any evidence of this, which was disappointing, when seeing an actual live rat seemed so much more exciting than spending time with a new baby sister.

My first experience of a domestic mouse invasion happened while I was living in a particularly dreadful shared student house. I say 'particularly dreadful', but should qualify that by saying that it was still ten times better than the previous student house, which had an indoor water feature.......as in when we turned on the 1-bar electric fires in our rooms, the walls ran with water. The fires had the luxury of 2 bars when we moved in, but after a week, we arrived home to find the landlord leaving with a bundle of bars in his hand which he was 'taking for spares'. Anyway, I digress. When we returned to House no 2 after the summer break, there had clearly been a mouse invasion. A clan of the things had set up home in the upstairs flat residents' fridge & had eaten a hole the size of a plate in part of the stairwell. There was no damage to the downstairs flat where I lived, but I could hear many sets of mouse feet scampering around in the cavity walls, so called the landlord out. He waited till the rent was due......why make a special journey? I explained about the mice in the wall cavities. His reply?? 
"Ah. That's not mice, duck. What you can hear in there is pigeons".
I adopt my special voice which I use for speaking to people who may cause me to lose my patience & try not to look at the 6 months of food spills he's wearing down the front of his jumper (the sort of garment which if he took it off, would jog to the bin on its own). I explained that it is NOT pigeons. It's mice. It's definitely mice because I can hear them scampering about & more worryingly, I can hear them CHEWING. But no, he's not having any of it. They are apparently the feral city centre pigeons, which is why I can hear gnawing. Is he saying that these pigeons are so hungry that they are flying out to the suburbs to feast on ancient plasterboard in people's cavity walls?? Yes, he WAS saying that. Action taken = none.

Next mouse experience was over a decade later when a field was cleared at the back of our house for building. All the critters scattered far & wide......most of the rodenty ones opting for our garden. Big mistake, our cat at the time, Willow, was an excellent hunter & must have been sitting on the other side of the hedge with his mouth open. One mouse made it into our kitchen, where he confused us by running between ours & our neighbours house. I bought a humane mousetrap & stuffed it with a decent cheddar. 2 days later.....nothing. Neighbour bought one & caught the mouse within 1 hour with a lump of Mars bar. Lessoned learned. Don't bother wasting cheese, it's junk food all the way for mice here.
When Willow was old & poorly, we had our Very Big Invasion. A neighbour had re-sited his shed & the mice who were living underneath it were looking for new premises in what was a cold autumn. The found their way through an airbrick & under the floor boards of our house & ran between ours & our neighbours. Mars bars were bought & traps set. Within a week, we'd caught 7. They were so blatant, that the final one was caught almost in our hands from his little hideout behind my cookery book shelf on the dresser. One afternoon, I had no sooner taken one for a long walk to freedom & reset the trap, than another one succumbed to chocolate temptation & off I went again. I walked most of them a good way off down to a farmer's field & let them go. Then I read that mice need to be freed at least a mile away to make quite sure that they won't return, so I took them further, down to the far end of the village (where the Tories live). Eventually, we had to call out Pest Control. He wasn't bothered about my theories on where they might be getting in. He asked straight away if we'd got any stripped wooden floors. 'Yes', I said, & learned how this is a really easy way for them to get from underneath a house (where they're quite common) up into our living space. He was impressed that we'd caught 7, but said that this indicated a Big Infestation. Cold weather & destruction of where they are living is a key reason why mice will pack their little knotted hankies & try to move in.
So, I scrubbed out the pantry, & have been checking daily for further signs. So far, so good. 

Now you may be wondering what the Chief Rat Catcher was doing while all this activity was going on. Well, he was putting his skills to use in the time-honoured way.....

...because here, you can actually SEE the keen level of interest he showed when I went to explain about the mouse.

This was him wanting to get involved while I was busy taking everything out of the pantry to check the extent of infiltration. And this was him pledging to earn his keep by setting up regular patrols......

Yes, his utter indifference has been quite staggering to behold. I can't say this has entirely surprised me. Albert Whiskers is completely random. A visiting mouse could be totally ignored, or he could meet with the nuclear option. Who knows?

One thing that did surprise me is that Mousey had broken into & eaten just one thing. Boxes of cereal, crackers, pasta, crisps, root vegetables.........all those items were sitting in the pantry waiting. But what did it choose? 

This, dear readers, is a jar of my home-made apple, cider & chilli jelly, previously unopened. Mousey had chewed off the cellophane lid, removed the wax paper disc & as you can see, eaten at least a centimetre of  the jelly. Jellies are liquid when they're bottled, so the surface is smooth. I also fill jars up to the top as this is good practice with home made preserves, to keep out the air. I couldn't believe how much of it had been eaten! Mousey is clearly a bit of a chilli-head as this is quite a hot jelly............maybe he doesn't have the same range of taste-buds as humans & couldn't taste it? In that case, all I can say is that I bet he felt it on its way out!

So there we are. Pantry being checked daily, but thankfully no sign. Have got a couple of bait boxes in dark corners just in case, but I don't really like using those. Humane traps are my favoured option. You have to remember to check them very regularly so that a creature isn't left shut up for a long time, but it somehow doesn't seem so bad to trap them if they get a chocolatey feast followed by a little ride in the car! 

Wishing everyone a good weekend,

Until next time,

C x

The Wanderer returns.......

...........or should that be The Very Naughty Cat?

Hello Friends,
Well, a sunny chilled out gardening morning turned into a stressful day as we dealt with The Strange Disappearance of Albert Whiskers. He'd had a nice enough catty morning. A large portion of particularly trouty gunk, two or three hours lazily patrolling the garden, rooting around in his spring den & explaining the concept of hedge ownership to Felix...................... & then he vanished! 
At 2pm, we realised we hadn't seen him since before lunch & commented how unusual it was. 
At 3pm, he still hadn't turned up, & that was distinctly odd, as Tummy Time usually kicks in about then & he likes to stay close to the kitchen in case there's any danger of anyone opening the fridge. Checked the house thoroughly in case he'd found a sunny, hidden little spot. He hadn't. 
4pm. Still no sign. The Big Hairy Half of the Relationship went out to check the shed. I checked the washing machine cupboard, as for some reason it has been the lifetime ambition of all the cats we've owned to excavate the furthest reaches of its dank cobwebby depths. 4 hours might not seem like a long time, but this is totally out of character & that's the worry.
5pm. We go upstairs to check over neighbours' gardens as far as we can see. Albert Whiskers is predominantly white. He isn't very good at camouflage (although I suppose he may come into his own when we next have some muddy snow), & he isn't in any of the gardens we can see.
5.10pm. Missing over 5 hours. I can't tell you how unusual this is. If Albert Whiskers isn't fed by 5pm sharp, he starts nibbling our trousers. Or tights. Or actual legs. This is so out of character. Decided to walk the length of our street to call him, trying to look through into gardens at the same time. Absolutely no sign whatsoever. This week is going to be stressful enough with the new clutch/gearbox problem & the multiple ££££-signs this is going to involve, without a lost cat. Trying to get a grip but am now stressing!!
5.20pm. Realised that a neighbour has been cleaning his caravan all day. Visions of furry stowaway. But no, he says he hasn't seen Albert at all today.
5.30pm. I check the shed again, even though it's already been checked & there's nowhere he could hide. I fetch the 'Dreamies' jar & walk around the garden shaking it. I have never known Albert Whiskers not to come running at the sound of the 'Dreamies' jar.....he even thinks cornflakes,  pistachio nuts, buttons, basically anything vaguely small & rattley might be 'Dreamies'. It never fails. But he doesn't come.
5.45pm. I decide to search along the street parallel to ours in case he's got onto that via any of the gardens opposite. But if he did, he isn't there now.
6.00pm Still no sign. There's a roast chicken in the oven. Albert never usually takes his eyes off the kitchen window if he goes outside when there's a Sunday roast in the offing.
6.15pm. Missing for over 6 hours. Absolutely utterly unheard of for Albert Whiskers. 
Then we suddenly spot our other neighbour beckoning us over the garden wall.
All that stress we'd been feeling? The pavements I'd trudged looking for him? The plans to knock all the houses on our street tonight to ask for sheds & garages to be checked.......that worst of all horrible feelings, that maybe we should walk down to the main road to see if he has met with an accident?

"Are you looking for your cat?", said our neighbour, "because if you are, he's in here. He's been asleep all afternoon on a chair & he's refusing to go home".
"What do you mean 'refusing'", we said, "Just send him home".
"Well, we would do", said neighbour, "but he's made himself comfortable on a chair & every time we try to move him, he grumbles at us".
We are now both apologising for his bad behaviour.
"Is he on a cushion?" I asked.
Oh, & guess what? He was! 
"Well, lift it up & tip him straight onto the floor. He can growl all he likes, but he won't bite you".
Neighbour went in (the whole family are there now, it's like a sort of feline eviction roadshow........a mobile phone is produced with a photo showing how comfortable he'd made himself) & a minute later, Albert Whiskers finally emerges onto their patio.
He managed to squeeze through the gap in the chicken fence.......too much Albert & not quite enough gap.....& reluctantly came indoors for long enough to make a dint in his dinner of 'Encore'. Yes, I know he really only deserved bread & water, but we were so relieved to see him.
And after his plateful of One Of The Most Expensive Tins Of Cat Food Money Can Buy, what did he do?
He exited our clearly substandard horrid home via his flap, trotted across the courtyard, squidged through the chicken fence & went to press his traitor's nose up against our neighbour's patio doors to try & regain entry! I am pleased to report that his charm offensive failed & as I write, he is back slumming it by the fire here at 'Hagstones'.
BLOODY CATS!! Can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em!!
Cat stress. Dealt with.
Car stress. Ongoing.
Till next time,
C x

Happy Easter!

Hello Friends,
Just a quick one today to share a few pictures & to welcome in the Spring.

The Easter 'tree' is up & the decomposing white fluffy chick who nearly went in the bin last time has lived to see another year! Despite the terrible weather forecast for Easter weekend, this morning began with promising amounts of blue sky & sunshine, so I had a little walk down the garden to soak up those early signs of spring. So many brimstone butterflies already this year, our old pear tree full of wood pigeons 'getting it on', & judging by the amount of new taddies in the pond, the neighbourhood frogs have been getting it on for some time! The daffodils were blowing brightly, a number of them in my courtyard containers having over-toppled, fetching up in a vase indoors........

......which is when I noticed that all of them are double blooms. I bought a bag of pretty much bog-standard bulbs, so can only assume the garden centre staff had either wrongly labelled them, or a customer had 'helpfully' muddled up the displays. Either way, these are beautiful & have produced 2 & the occasional 3 flowers from each bulb. 

First bluebell buds just popping too.

I've done a bit of baking this morning - just bread, & as my Easter cake was eaten yesterday at our Family Day, I've baked a quick semolina cake filled with home-made raspberry jam, which we've just sampled warm with a fresh cafetiere. Ooooh, simple pleasures! Am intending a day of relaxation & leisure today.......nothing more energetic than reading, knitting & cat-stroking.......
.......talking of which..........

The Big Hairy Half of the Relationship snapped Albert Whiskers enjoying a brief 'Easter moment' this morning:

Eggs & baubles all intact. He is very tired this morning, having had a night on the tiles. There's a new cat on the block......quite a chunky gingernut with a white bib & paws. I spotted him last night trotting past our house, & given the cautious look he gave up our front drive, I am assuming that Ginger Newbie & Albert Whiskers are already acquainted. 
He did raise sufficient energy earlier to enjoy a few 'Dreamies'........

......but apart from that, I am not expecting him to surface until Tummytime.
A very Happy Easter to all our friends & family, whether you are taking part in the Christian festival or celebrating as we do, the return of green & lovely things, we wish you a peaceful & happy time.

C x

Recycled coffee bags

Hello Friends,
Well here we are, second day of Spring, & that glimpse of sun at the weekend has faded back to dismal chilly grey. Plenty of signs of spring in the garden, though, including much amphibious activity in our wildlife pond.

We didn't have any tadpoles last year because a heron fancied a bit of froggy caviar & that was the end of it. All of it! The first tadpoles are just hatching now. The snowdrops have been replaced by narcissus, & I've been busy clearing & replanting my flower borders, making use of all the free self-seeded goodies, such as primroses, foxgloves, aquilegia & verbena bonariensis. 

The veggie plantlets are doing well, but it's still too cold for them in my unheated greenhouse unless they are well wrapped up. I use an old long muslin curtain & plastic bottle cloches to cover them on chilly days, as this lets the light through, but they need an extra layer at night for at least a couple of weeks or so I decided to try making an 'emergency' blanket from recycled coffee bags. I'd heard organic gardener Bob Flowerdew talking about this a while back on Radio 4's gardening programme. Here at the People & Cats Republic, we try to recycle as much as possible, & I do think there is a personal responsibility to think about one's household waste stream, especially for those traditionally non-recyclable materials which are regularly bought & consumed. Ground coffee bags fall into this category. We are both coffee gannets, & unless one buys the more artisan/farmer's market-type coffees, the packaging is usually plasticized film bags which are not accepted in council recycling collections.

OK, plenty of materials. The next job was to turn the bags inside out so that the shiny silver inner is on the outside. Some brands of coffee bag have a much duller grey metallic inner, so I rejected all of those because I wanted this project be reflective for additional heat & light.

This is an emergency blanket 'layer' for baby plants. It doesn't need to win any beauty contests, so all I did next was staple the bags together. I didn't cut them open. I kept the double thickness because even with my limited scientific thinking, it seems that the bag would trap a layer of air & additional insulation. Once I'd constructed a large enough sheet to cover my current batch of seedlings, I tested it out. The seedlings were moved from an upstairs windowsill above a night radiator to our chilly conservatory (unheated when not in use), & covered with their new shiny emergency blanket.

Even cloched as they are with plastic bottles, etc, aubergines, chillies & tomato plantlets can wither in the night-time chill of our conservatory. An early next morning check-in found them still upright & as happy as could be expected. I am now adding coffee bags to this so that I end up with a blanket which will cover the whole of my greenhouse bench. Yes, I could go to the garden centre & buy a big length of horticultural fleece, but there are many things I'd prefer to buy, & there's such a satisfaction in re-purposing rubbish into useful items, both keeping it out of landfill & fulfilling a gardening need. 

I was planning to take a new up-to-date photo of Albert Whiskers today, to include in this blog post, but he's disappeared! He went off in a huff  about an hour ago, because he accidentally gobbled some some of the meat he's been wilfully refusing to eat for the last two days & I think he's really mad with himself. I'd already re-chopped it (fellow cat-owners will know about this) & mashed it up with a spoonful of water in case it was getting dry. No luck. I then tried the often successful 'Dreamies' method: 1) Human shakes the 'Dreamies'. 2) Cat comes running. 3) Two 'Dreamies' are implanted vertically deep into the offending meat. 4) Cat eats 'Dreamies' & meat. 

Well, at first, he wasn't going for it. He studied his bowl in forensic detail before managing to extract one 'Dreamie' while barely touching the meat. Pleased with his ability to see through my cunning plan, he went for the 2nd 'Dreamie' a little too quickly, had a tiny taste of meat, & before he knew it, he'd gobbled half the bowl. Oh yes, Me - 1, Albert Whiskers - Nil. He stomped off through the catflap shortly afterwards & hasn't been seen since. I suspect he is restoring his sense of self-worth by marauding some of the smaller neighbouring cats. So no new photo to share.......

........but here's an old one which never fails to make me smile. 

Hope we see some sunshine soon. Happy gardening......if that's your thing. 

Until Easter,

C x

Yay! Spring rhubarb time!

Hello Friends,
Ha! You thought you were going to make it through this month without me boring you with rhubarb, didn't you? Wrong! The mild winter really put a rocket under the spring rhubarb here. I covered the tiniest signs of pink with the forcing crock back in January, & by the end of February, the stems were forcing up the lid to push their leaves through. It took all of 5 seconds to pop the crock in place - so worth it for some early fresh fruit from the garden. There is nothing like that burst of shocking pink, topped with lime green leaves, on lifting the crock while most of the veggie garden is still cold, bare earth.

Over a kilo of stems, which wasn't bad going considering that I forced it twice last year & also pulled a lot of mature summer stems too, mostly for the freezer. The spring crop has a more delicate flavour & it's a bit of a waste to stew it - not that I don't like stewed rhubarb, it's nice on yoghurt, muesli, for crumbles, etc, but it can loose a lot of its colour & look a bit sludgy. I sliced & baked mine, a la Delia. I just cut the stems into chunks, put them in a large flat dish - I use my lasagne dish - squeeze over the juice of a small orange or satsuma, (I grated over a bit of the zest too), half a tsp of ground ginger, then sprinkle with about 75g sugar. The important thing is not to add any water, so that it cooks in its own juices.

You can see how it goes into the oven, looking really pink. It needs about 40 mins at Gas 4. When it comes out, do you see a dish of brown string? No! It will have kept its gorgeous pinkmongous hues & you will be instantly looking around for a spoon!

You can see from the juices that there is no need for added water. I divided mine up into little pots & froze for desserts, for topping porridge, etc. I only baked the chunky stems. There were a few weedier ones, so in the spirit of our zero food-waste policy here at the People & Cats Republic, I chopped those & made a quick batch of rhubarb & ginger mini-muffins. A dollop of lemon icing on the top & they were good to go......most of them into the freezer, for nice home-baked low-fat little additions to packed lunches, picnics or just for those 'I really, really need cake, but not the 400 calories that come with it' moments!
So yes, I've been playing with rhubarb. The forcing crock has been stood down now until next January, & the rhubarb crown has already started putting out maincrop stems. We have only one crown & it provides ample rhubarb for two people for no expense or effort whatsoever. It gets a few spades of our garden compost chucked over it around November & a can or two of home-brewed comfrey stink during the growing season, & that's it.

Oh, & I've been knitting more socks............

......which have absolutely nothing to do with rhubarb!

Have a good week all,
C x

Cappucino mousse, anyone?

Hello Friends,
I've been meaning to share this recipe since St. Valentine's Day, but somehow the last couple of weeks seem to have vanished in a time-warp of knitting cats, rhubarb, seed-sowing & meetings. 

I love to collect recipes & experiment with cooking new things, but I'm also a great re-visitor of my more 'vintage' recipes - those dishes I used to make frequently in the past, but have fallen out of my immediate repertoire. For Valentine's Day, the Big Hairy Half of the Relationship, no stranger to the kitchen himself, announced that he was cooking a meal & that all I would need to 'bring' was myself & dessert. This seemed a good time to resurrect my cappucino mousses.....a dessert I clearly hadn't made for at least 17 years, as the BHHOTR rather sniffily informed me that he'd never had the opportunity to try one!

There's a delightful kitschness to these, with their sprinkled snowy-swirled tops & little spoons in the saucers (sorry, I went a bit 'Nigella' there, for a moment.....), as they are served in coffee cups. The original recipe suggested using demi-tasse cups, which is essential if you need to serve 6 people, but if you are serving 4, or feel like making a pig of yourself, then standard cups are fine.

I've seen various mousse recipes over the years which seem to involve more la-di-dah fancypants preparation than I usually want to be bothered with. Not this one. Even people who say they 'can't cook' need not feel threatened, as the culinary skills set is so basic. Can you make a cup of instant coffee? Melt chocolate? Use an electric whisk? There's really no more to it than that.

Cappucino Mousses
175g dark chocolate (I use Waitrose or Co-op own-brand (fairtrade), though the well-known alleged tax-avoiding variety also works well. Avoid the very high-cocoa content premium brands for this, as I sometimes find they don't work as well in old recipes compiled before these brands became common-place)
1 tbsp good quality instant coffee granules
3 tbsp boiling water
2 egg yolks
5 egg whites 
60g caster sugar
5 tbsp double cream
142ml (ish) extra double cream to decorate
1 tsp cocoa powder

Break the chocolate into pieces & put in a heatproof bowl with the sugar. Dissolve the coffee in the 3 tbsp boiling water & add it to the chocolate. Now melt the coffee, chocolate & sugar together in the bowl set over a small pan of simmering water. 
While that's going on, separate the eggs & eat the leftover chocolate. You're doing the work making the dessert aren't you? Chef's anti-oxidants. Put the egg whites in a large bowl & the egg yolks in a mug. Check how the chocolate's getting on. 
When the chocolate has melted, remove the bowl from the heat, & stir in the egg yolks. The chocolate is unlikely to be hot enough to scramble the yolks, but stir them in well, just in case. Put this mixture aside to cool for 10 mins.
Meanwhile, use an electric whisk to whisk the egg whites until they form stiff peaks. If you can turn the bowl upside down over your head without them moving, they are probably stiff enough. Rinse the beaters & in a small bowl, whisk the 5tbsp of cream until stiff, & fold it into the chocolate mixture. 
Next take as big a blob of the egg whites as you can fit on a tablespoon without being silly about it, & fold it into the chocolate mixture. Now using a spatula, carefully scrape the contents of the chocolate bowl into the big egg white bowl & fold together gently until everything is nicely combined.
Spoon the mixture into 6 demi-tasse or 4 standard size coffee cups & leave to set in the fridge overnight. 

Next day - At some point before you want to eat them, whisk the rest of the cream until stiff, then pipe a swirl on top of each cup. Dust with a titchy bit of cocoa powder before serving. Pop each cup on a saucer with a teaspoon & let your guests think you have spent ages making something complicated.

Two useful things about this recipe - I like things which can be made the day before so I can get ahead. It leaves more time for a glass or two of wine when, with less foresight, you could have been running out of time. Technically, this should set in a few hours, but overnight is the really reliable option. Secondly, if you have any mousses leftover (i.e you have invited hairshirt-wearing dessert phillistines to your house), they will be fine in the fridge for another day. You might have had a really crap day at work by then, or or spent all day trying to avoid self-servative bozos on the telly, so a little treatypoo in the fridge awaiting the arrival of your frazzled self might be just what you need!
So there we have it - a slightly retro, very lovely dessert that I wish I'd re-discovered earlier. 
Did it go down well with the BHHOTR? It really did (until I suggested that I might serve it in our tiny espresso cups next time!)

Well, for Albert Whiskers fans, this has been his level of industry for pretty much all of today. It's been an all-day mixture of rain, sleet & sunshine, so he managed to blag the sunny end of the sofa & inspected the back of his eyelids for a few hours. However, he's now gone off to continue a Very Important Mission - to try & find the robbing gobbler who snuck through his catflap last night when everyone was immersed in watching the finale of 'Shetland' & stole his biscuits! He has taken an extremely dim view of this, has been over every centimetre of the interloper's route in, & I can only imagine what a pasting he (because it was probably Splodgy) or she (because it could just have been Champers) is going to get when he catches up with them! You'd think the smaller cats would avoid our house by now, as we always adopt these older ex-street cats, but they don't seem to learn.
Oh well, it feels like time to light the fire & put the kettle one.
Have a good weekend, everyone,
C x 

'The Quality of Silence' by Rosamund Lupton

Hello Friends,
Hands up who has missed seeing snow this year! Definitely me! Here in Newark, I estimate that we have seen around 17 grains of the stuff since the beginning of Winter. I was quite excited last week when weather forecasters predicted at least a couple of showers passing over our region, but what a big fib that was! Not a single flake. Admittedly, I do have quite strict parameters where snowfall is concerned. I like it to start on Friday night, create an icy weekend world for walks before conveniently thawing overnight on Sunday ready for the week ahead. This winter, when I've even had hardy geraniums in flower in January (how wrong is that?), I'd have settled for any snow, any amount, any time. Crisp bright cold winters are most definitely my thing. 

Amidst all the grey sogginess, I did read a fantastic book which provided a bit of a 'snow fix'. I thought I'd tell you about it, as I know I have many friends who share my love of reading. It's a novel by Rosamund Lupton, called The Quality of Silence, first published in 2015. The paperback edition is new this year, published by Piatkus, ISBN: 978-0-349-40815-6.

Now, you'll want a steaming cafetiere & a fireside if you're planning on tucking yourself up with this one. This is one seriously icy story. It is also a book I found difficult to put down, so I read it in a couple of sittings. I really detest reviews which contain spoilers, so I'm going to do my best to give a flavour, without revealing plot details:

The story begins on November 24th, when Yasmin & her 10-year old daughter, Ruby, fly out from England to Alaska. They are supposed to meet Ruby's father at the airport, but he isn't there. Instead, they are met by a policeman who says, 'Can't tell you anything yet, I'm sorry'. Information is hard to come by, but there has clearly been some disaster, now shrouded in secrecy. Yasmin won't accept the 'official line' & decides to journey into the depths of Alaska to find her wildlife photographer/film maker husband. It is winter time, & his last known whereabouts so close to the Arctic, that there is no daylight. This is a perilous journey that must be made in darkness in treacherous snow & ice, with a storm on its way. Although afraid for her small daughter's life, Yasmin refuses to leave her behind, for Ruby is profoundly deaf & they communicate through signing & a screen to voice computer programme. Much of the story is told through the voice of Ruby, & the relationship between her & her mother is one of the most enduring features of the story.
Another unforgettable feature is the cold. This is a story of endurance across a frozen landscape of eyeball-freezing temperatures. So strong is Rosamund Lupton's prose, I found I was at one point shivering with cold, willing Yasmin & Ruby to improvise some extra layers to keep them alive, while at the same time, having to pull a blanket around my own shoulders. For this IS a story about endurance. It is also a story about a mother/child bond, which has a strong environmental theme. Ruby's deafness is handled sensitively, & she is such a 'real' & positive character, that on finishing the novel, I felt I'd spent actual physical time in her company - the mark of a good writer, I think.
Without resorting to spoilers, I should add that the novel has many hallmarks of a thriller, for while Yasmin pushes herself to the limits of human endurance to find out what has happened to her husband, there is someone who is working just as hard to prevent this from happening. 
I hadn't read any other novels by this author, but will be adding them to my (endless!) reading list.

Don't miss this one! I can guarantee that once you have read it, you won't moan about having to walk to 'Spar' in the snow to fetch a pint of milk ever again! You may also find yourself signing petitions! I am highly recommending this novel. Beautifully written. I borrowed it from the library, read it, then purchased my own copy, as I knew it would be one I'd want to read again.

Sadly, 3 months of Soggy Grey has meant that I have no interestingly icy garden photos to share from this winter. I've had a root through our files, though, & found some old ones.

You can just make out all the cat paw prints in this one. It's from 2008. Our Resident Fur Friend back then was Willow - my beautiful grey tabby - another adult rescue cat with attitude, & still much missed.

 He didn't rate snow, but it had to be endured, as there were boundaries to check, neighbouring cats to monitor, old scores to settle, so he'd take a deep breath & push himself out through the cat flap into the snowy garden.

Not much snow in this picture, so chilly paws only. He was much less keen when greater snowfall meant it came up to his undercarriage, but he would still venture out. Willow was never someone to let his territory be enjoyed by other felines, even in the worst of weather.

Oh well.......the colder months are about done, so I'm unlikely to get any snowy walks now until next winter. We did manage a bit of one at Rufford Park last month, before it quickly melted away. The gardening season is almost upon me (5 aubergine seedlings up today!) so I shall have to concentrate on enjoying Spring.
Yours Snowlessly,
C x