Snow, Ice and Brrrrrr!

I used to refer to Britain's weather as 'mild' and that I enjoyed the fact that I could wear the same sort of clothes all year round since it didn't get super cold or super hot. That's now been blown out of the water by this winter.

Wow.

It's been icey cold, temperatures in the negatives(celsius), plenty of snow floating down making picturesque landscapes and perfect for building snowmen with and snowballs causing disruptions at major sporting events(ok maybe that was technically in Europe, but still worth mentioning).

It's been lovely for those of us who enjoy snow and I am really enjoying this new found UK winter season. In fact, winter is my favorite season closely followed by fall. They are such atmospheric & cosy seasons with such unique landscapes.

However, I am not a fan of extreme winter weather conditions causing huge upset for people trying to get to work and dangerous driving conditions on the roads. Nor am I a fan of it causing huge delays to me getting back to my family for the holidays.

Ho-hum.

We really can't complain though as long as we're healthy, well and safe(as my mom pointed out) and there is no one to blame since it's a freak weather situation. Perhaps Mother Nature needs a little slap on the wrist?

There's no place like home for the holidays and all that..... Season's Greetings to all and to all a warm & cosy goodnight!

Making Some Pretzels

In honor of Germany, my World Cup Team from the pool at work, I decided to make some soft pretzels since I think they are pretty German for my purposes. But I made pretzel nubs rather than twisty ones since those take a heck of a lot more dough to make enough for an office to taste-test.

So here I am now, telling the tale of my pretzel making whilst listening to the best of Dolly Parton (it makes me giggle to sing along to it) and the tale begins....

Having mixed all the ingredients for the dough together, it was not rising quite as fast as I'd thought it would, it kind of just sat there doing nothing, until I put the bowl near the oven which was preheating. That kicked it up a notch with some rising finally(phew!) and I was able to divide the dough up and roll the individual pretzel nubs out.

The nubs then got boiled in a baking soda/water combo and didn't look very pretzel-like yet...


Then they get to drip dry before they are sprinkled with salt(or whatever other fun topping you choose) and then put into the super hot oven to finish their journey to pretzelhood.


So at this point, post-oven, they finally look like pretzels, albeit nubby ones!

Go Germany!

Snow!

We've been hit by an unexpectedly cold & snowy winter here in the UK and wow! The country is just not able to deal with it, they're running out of salt for spreading on the roads and most people have no clue how to drive in the snow/icy conditions since they never get any practice, so it's pretty dangerous on the roads.

Luckily, the public transport has been reasonably reliable (when the freezing temps aren't causing doors to get stuck & engines to not work) so overall, if you can get a bus/metro to where you want to be then it's been a-ok! And i think kids are loving the fact that the schools are closed and they get to go sledding & build snowmen & have snowball fights, it's great.

I've gotten out into the snow a bit myself and have had some nice walks among the white prettiness. I even built a little horizontal snowman(it wasn't the right kind of snow for packing into an upright one - so i improvised!) in my back yard. I am just loving this wintry weather! It finally feels like we've had an actual season here in England for once.