Back In The Saddle Again

This evening, my blogger friend, Milo, asked me to update my blog with the URL of his latest literary incarnation and in doing so, I noticed great changes had been made with blogger itself.......for example, many new dynamic templates had been added.

I looked at a few of them and despite losing a few of the extras I'd set up on my old template (like the time and weather in Leeds and Sebring, most recent comments and number of visitors etc) I've decided to renew my interest in all this by giving my blog a huge revamp.  Hence the template you see before you.......flip panels for every blog post.

It's a bit......different......and I'm not sure I'll keep it but at least it does highlight those posts with photos in case anyone wants to go to those at any time for a looky look.

For those not good at exploring web pages, if you move your arrow over to the right, a slideout bar will appear with some options, starting with my blog archives.  Use this to bring up the flip panels from each year going back to 2006, when I started blogging.  For some reason, most of the posts from 2006 don't show as having photos - but they do.  Clearly something happened within Blogger in Dec 2006 and suddenly photos appear. If you click on a post in 2006, it may well have photos but sadly you'll just have to see them within the post and not via the flip panel.  Hey ho.

Like I said, I may decide to go for a different template later as this is VERY radical for me and I'm not sure I do radical at my advanced age. I do like the flip idea but it's a bit weird to me to go to my blog and not see any text right away.  Freaks me out that it's all gone AWOL but one flip later, and there it is.

Anyway, moving on, it's mid winter here in the UK. We had a bit of snow a week ago and of course, as expected, the country came to a grinding halt.  Snow has this effect on us as it always comes as a complete surprise and we just don't know what to do about it.  So we close schools, stay off work and yet still manage to block most main roads by abandoning our cars as soon as the first flakes hit our windscreens.

"OMG we're under attack by that white stuff.......run for the hills.  Oh sod it, there's even more up there !"

Of course, being retired like wot I am, I had stocked up on food and so I sat it all out in the comfort of my centrally heated house. I watched the rush hour chaos from my cosy recliner chair and living room window and even enjoyed the sight of a few showoffs going by on skis pulling their spoilt offspring on sledges.

It was 4 cms of snow on a Leeds residential street for goodness sake.....not exactly the Iditarod trail !

Sadly it didn't last long. At its worst in my street, this was the scene and I think you can tell which was my car !  Told you I didn't go anywhere.

As these final two photos show, it was a case of here today and gone tomorrow as these were taken 24 hrs apart. The thaw had already started in the first one as evidenced by the lack of snow on the cars.

So it was fun while it lasted and snow was part of the reason I wanted to spend winter here at home after 10 years of spending them in America, mostly in Florida.  Mad ?  Probably, but I do like snow covered scenes.

Obviously I do miss the sun and warmth but hey, maybe we'll have a great summer as I plan on exploring this undiscovered country and good weather would be very nice.

Right, more updates to follow and I have to say, it's good to be back...........