After the lads had a good morning session with the maths and Clifford was in school for an hour and did some maths as well we decided to to sledging in Durham for the afternoon. Miles has fully recovered from whatever cold bug he had so he was raring to get out and thrash the slopes with sledges for 90 minutes which is just what they did. Because of everyone sledging over the weekend and a hard frost last night the slopes were almost dangerously slippy and when Miles first whizzed down he was amazed at how fast he went . After watching them for five minutes I went for a nice 3 mile walk around the town and woods really enjoying the low winter afternoon light glancing across the building and the trees. Hardly any bird life to be seen on the River Wear but I did notice that between Prebends and Framwellgate Bridge it was icing over . Gosh it was cold this morning . When I drove Fo into work it was -11 and on the way back just before our house it descended to -12.5. The only time ever in the UK I have known temperatures like that we have been high up in the Howgills or Teesdale and there has been wind chill as well. Today just outside my house -12.5 and no wind whatsoever . Man that's cold . Before we went out today I did a careful gear check with the lads and they had their body warmers on and Clifford was in double gloves . Mind you when they hit the slopes they were that excited with the speed they were getting I don't think they noticed the cold.

After the afternoons exertions when we got back Miles got straight down to an hour of maths and he is really enjoying the last module of his pure maths course which doesn't start 29/1/11. He is well ahead and the other course he is doing he doesn't need to prepare up at all for that . Clever doggy! But he has also done a lot of work over the last three months. Nice afternoon out and to put myself in Fiona's goody extra goody books I have knocked up a chicken casserole for tea and I'm looking forward to hearing the "Ooooooooooooooooooo" from her when I tell her what we are having for tea. Cold weather walks, chicken, nice man what more does a woman want!