It may only be a third of the way through October, but going by the temperature when I got in my car this morning: 2 oC, it is about time we ran our annual snow book competition.
The usual criteria applies: the date when a layer of snow settles on the ground outside our unit in Hawes. The local farmers around my way, (which is always a few degrees colder than Hawes on account of being in the back end of nowhere and higher up), say that it is going to be a long, hard, cold winter until March 2014. It does feel like we skipped Autumn and have gone straight from summer to winter.
Please e-mail Iona at ionahill@gmail.com to add your entry. The prize will be a luscious pot of our new mystery cheese. In the past three years, snow started here, outside our unit at Hawes as follows:
6th December 2012 – Duncan the Builder from the Ribblehead was the winner
5th November 2011 – Lydia was the winner
18th November 2010 – first snow but no snow book
2013
3rd November: Andrew, Ribblesdale Cheese. (We want to know what Andrew knows. His entry is very unnerving as Andrew also farms and this makes me think he knows something!)
5th November: my friend Sue
6th November: Debbie, commercial cheese making alumni
7th November: Una
7th November: Geoff, commercial cheese making class alumni, whose wife Chris opted for a little later
9th November: Jean at Wensleydale Dairy
11th November: Ross, one of our customers, who says, ‘I’ve been reading your blog and I would like to add an entry to the snow book please. I think it will be the 11th November. I think this because it’s my 21st birthday then so it will be a special day’.
12th November: Karen from my local, The Station Inn
13th November: Christina, Turophile from Slough
15th November: Gordon, delivery driver for a customer of ours
16th November: Kate, for the first layer of snow in Hawes. (A very speedy reply – first off the block!)
16th November: Jason, my electrician who (like me) fears for a long and hard, snowy winter
16th November: Stu, our goat milk organiser and it happens to be his birthday too!
18th November: Roger, our cow milk provider
19th November: Alan, Transport Manager for one of our customers
21st November: my friend Nicola, fund manager in the US
22nd November: Pearl at Barclays, Hawes, because it is the 50th anniversary of JFKs death
28th November: Chris, commercial cheese making class alumni
28th November: Jo, landlady at my local, the Station Inn, aka The Ribblehead
29th November: Nigel, resident of Hardraw
2nd December: Steve, our Parcelforce man
6th December: Robert, one of our goat milk delivery drivers
11th December: Lou, Jason the electrician’s wife – and also because it is her birthday – congrats in advance, Lou!
13th December: Carol at Wensleydale Dairy
14th December: David at High Blean B&B Askrigg
14th December: Adrian, secretary at Nantiwch Show: I predict that 14th December is the date we have pencilled in to come back to our favourite part of the country !!
15th December: Stu, Ribblesdale Cheese
16th December: Simon, Weardale Willie, also a cheese making alumni whose daughter’s birthday is also 16th December
17th December: Iona, Ribblesdale Cheese, (mine is purely wishful thinking, wanting the snow to arrive at the last possible moment because I am dreading the drive to and from work)
18th December: Dave, Teeside Logistics/APC
18th December: Richard, cheese making alumni from Swaledale. He says, ‘last year, I have photos of the goats trying to eat the chicken food in an inch of snow on October 22nd. However this year I predict it will start like a proper winter, on about and run through to March.
20th December: my friend Jan the rather splendid photographer
21st December: Greg@ Brytec
28th December: Pat, owner of the tea van at the Ribblehead junction who thinks it is going to be a mild winter
7th Jan 2014: Peter G
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