It may only be a third of the way through October, but going by the temperature when I got in my car this morning: 2 oC, it is about time we ran our annual snow book competition.

The usual criteria applies: the date when a layer of snow settles on the ground outside our unit in Hawes.  The local farmers around my way, (which is always a few degrees colder than Hawes on account of being in the back end of nowhere and higher up), say that it is going to be a long, hard, cold winter until March 2014.  It does feel like we skipped Autumn and have gone straight from summer to winter.

Please e-mail Iona at ionahill@gmail.com to add your entry.  The prize will be a luscious pot of our new mystery cheese.   In the past three years, snow started here, outside our unit at Hawes as follows:

6th December 2012 – Duncan the Builder from the Ribblehead was the winner

5th November 2011 – Lydia was the winner

18th November 2010 – first snow but no snow book

2013

3rd November: Andrew, Ribblesdale Cheese.  (We want to know what Andrew knows.  His entry is very unnerving as Andrew also farms and this makes me think he knows something!)

5th November: my friend Sue

6th November: Debbie, commercial cheese making alumni

7th November: Una

7th November: Geoff, commercial cheese making class alumni, whose wife Chris opted for a little later

9th November: Jean at Wensleydale Dairy

11th November: Ross, one of our customers, who says, ‘I’ve been reading your blog and I would like to add an entry to the snow book please. I think it will be the 11^th November.  I think this because it’s my 21^st birthday then so it will be a special day’.

12th November: Karen from my local, The Station Inn

13th November: Christina, Turophile from Slough

15th November: Gordon, delivery driver for a customer of ours

16th November: Kate, for the first layer of snow in Hawes.  (A very speedy reply – first off the block!)

16th November: Jason, my electrician who (like me) fears for a long and hard, snowy winter

16th November: Stu, our goat milk organiser and it happens to be his birthday too!

18th November: Roger, our cow milk provider

19th November: Alan, Transport Manager for one of our customers

21st November: my friend Nicola, fund manager in the US

22nd November: Pearl at Barclays, Hawes, because it is the 50th anniversary of JFKs death

28th November: Chris, commercial cheese making class alumni

28th November: Jo, landlady at my local, the Station Inn, aka The Ribblehead

29th November: Nigel, resident of Hardraw

2nd December: Steve, our Parcelforce man

6th December: Robert, one of our goat  milk delivery drivers

11th December: Lou, Jason the electrician’s wife – and also because it is her birthday – congrats in advance, Lou!

13th December: Carol at Wensleydale Dairy

14th December: David at High Blean B&B Askrigg

14^th December: Adrian, secretary at Nantiwch Show: I predict that 14th December is the date we have pencilled in to come back to our favourite part of the country !!

15th December: Stu, Ribblesdale Cheese

16th December: Simon, Weardale Willie, also a cheese making alumni whose daughter’s birthday is also 16th December

17th December: Iona, Ribblesdale Cheese, (mine is purely wishful thinking, wanting the snow to arrive at the last possible moment because I am dreading the drive to and from work)

18th December: Dave, Teeside Logistics/APC

18th December: Richard, cheese making alumni from Swaledale.  He says, ‘last year, I have photos of the goats trying to eat the chicken food in an inch of snow on October 22nd. However this year I predict it will start like a proper winter, on about and run through to March.

20th December: my friend Jan the rather splendid photographer

21st December: Greg@ Brytec

28th December: Pat, owner of the tea van at the Ribblehead junction who thinks it is going to be a mild winter

7th Jan 2014: Peter G