Pride comes before a fall of snow

When we built our house, 20 years ago, we made sure to put lots and lots of insulation in the loft space as well as the partition walls and always felt a little bit smug when there was snow on our roof while our neighbours were obviously loosing heat and their snow was melting. It kind of backfired on us this year. The snow on our roof has seriously built up and the gutters are blocked with ice so there has been lots of dripping over the last couple of days when we've finally had a degree or so of thaw. We knocked down the icicles and moved some of the snow away from the gutters to try and relieve the situation.I've spent most of my time chipping away ice to keep our steps and paths clear, I found under the ice and unblocked the drain on the balcony so melt water could get away, I thought we were doing really well and the end was in sight. Then last night, just after I'd come in I heard a terrible noise like something crashing into the house and looked out to see that half the snow on the front roof had come crashing down onto the terrace bringing the gutters with it. Disaster. Mr FF is away on business for a few days and not home until late tonight but I spoke to him and he thought that my fears of the balcony collapsing under the weight or the rail being pushed over were unfounded, and I believe the engineer, he designed the structure. This is the view from the room that opens onto the balcony.

Just before I went to bed I heard the same sound as snow came off the side of the house and that has brought down more gutter.

I took a walk round this morning, keeping well away from the house, and found to my dismay that the guttering over the lean-to greenhouse is opening up with a huge amount of snow and ice looming over the glass roof. That is very worrying though there's nothing I can do apart from wait and see. I did dash in to rescue a few pots of spring bulbs, very foolish but I thought if I loose everything else they might make me feel a bit better and they are now safe in the conservatory, which isn't at risk.

Not a great disaster in the scheme of things and I am trying to concentrate on the plant buying possibilities, at my age I have a motley collection of plants that I keep going just because I have them, may be time to start again
While I wait I've cleared the pile of snow that landed outside the garage so Mr FF can get his car in when he comes home tonight and dug a pathway to the fuel store. The coal man had been early this morning and clambered over a metre high pile of snow that was blocking the way to the bunker, three times I assume as he'd delivered three bags. People are so kind, he will be getting a big thank you very soon. It's getting difficult to find places to heap all the snow, at present there is no hope of me getting my car out of the garage but that's not a problem I don't intend going out on my own just yet.

Now to wait for the crash, maybe a little sock knitting and some trashy tv will calm me.