EMP in the US

So today it rained, and how! This melted a lot of the snow, but not all of it, and this morning, the rain all froze to the road, but that had all cleared by the time we ventured out. We live about 15 minutes walk from the Conneticut river (it’s big) and also near the “White River” (in Spring, it’s white). Someone was telling us that as recently as the 80s, it melted so fast that huge icebergs pelted down the river and took out the bridges! There are flood warnings being issued tonight.

We decided to venture out in it anyway. It felt very warm today – it was about 12°Celsius! This made everything steam:

The head’s finally fallen off the snowman, which I’m quite glad about, as it kept scaring me when I had to close all the blinds at night and it loomed in the (inadequate) streetlight. The driveway looks good for skating tomorrow!

We also have our own private little indoor flood, which I am expecting to be even greater in the spring – more ice and snow have been forecast for tomorrow, so let’s hope it freezes up again for now!

(In case you are wondering where the water comes from…)

So I finally took Thomas to the library to try and get him into books that are not about violence and gangsters with guns, (Tintin) or use politically incorrect terminology when referring to people of non-white race (yup, Tintin again).
So, we got a huge pile of books out of the library. He chose almost all of them, but I picked one as the inception of a cunning and subtle plan…

And here is where I admit I did actually encourage Thomas along a bit with his reading today. I got out a book which was more like an 8-year-old book. Firstly, it’s a fantasy book, which I knew would appeal to Thomas, and although it’s mostly writing, there are a few pictures dotted around, especially at the chapter titles. Normally with this sort of book, Thomas decides the writing is too small and doesn’t try to read it. So this is where I unleashed the second part of my cunning plan. I read the first two chapters to him at bedtime, and stopped just where they discovered the magic staircase into another world… Needless to say he was hooked, (having fidgeted all the way through the plot setup). He wanted me to read more, and I said “no, but you could read it yourself if you want”, thereby actioning the third and final coup de grâce and let him have the light on for 10 more minutes after kiss-n-cuddle. I’m not overly keen on encouraging the reading too much, but it was frustrating for both of us that he has pretty much read all the books in the “early readers” section of the library, (that aren’t clearly for girls, or kids who’ve travelled in time from the 70s). I’m hoping this book will open up a whole new shelf for him at the library. He still likes to read picture books, and sneaks in behind Ollie to hear his little brother’s story.

After lights-out, he has a torch to indulge a bit more.