My birthday and there's snow on the tops!

Yes, it may only be the end of September but the tops had a good dusting of snow last night! Our little weather station is reading an outside temperature of 4.9 degrees at the moment, so there may be more to come. Even the hillside behind us, which is at under 1000m, has had a light dusting! Could this be the sign of a hard winter to come, or is it just a passing meteorogical 'dip'? Reminds me, I must contact our neighbour Claudine to ask if we can do some logging on the fallen trees on her land down the road - think we need to bolster the log supplies just in case.

I was woken a couple of times in the night by the sound of torrential rain and we discovered this morning that the pipe which runs excess water from the guttering and household pipes off down the hillside (no mains drains or sewerage system here, no siree!) is blocked once again and water is backing up to the surface just outside the house. The problem is we have no idea how far down the 100m+ pipe the blockage is located. We tried the 'throw chemicals at it' thing last time but that didn't work, so it is a bit of a puzzle but one that needs to be solved if we are not going to end up with a flooded house next time we have a downpour!

19.45 pm - update on the aforementioned drain 'situation'. One minute Andy is making scrummy meatball things for tea and the next he is up to his elbows in smelly, stinky, yukky stuff, water that has been backing up and getting stinkier by the day as the blockage gets a hold . He decided to dig a bit below the surface above where the pipe heads down from the drain, is it seemed to move there when he pushed up with his hand inside the pipe. And what do you know, the piece of flag that was just an inch or two below the surface and which covered the plastic 'sump' had broken and a piece broken off. The actual sump was therefore an inch or two deep with pebbles and other associated goo which won't have helped. Then with the aid of a running hosepipe (we don't have any rods!) he started ramming down the pipe and eventually we heard a 'whoosh' down the hillside as the blockage cleared and the build up of water flowed out. Hopefully that will be the last time that has to be done!
I am now looking forward to the tasty Italian meatballs that I am expecting for tea