More cold
I can’t frelling* believe it. We’re having another hard frost tonight.
Why can’t this weather go find a nice glacier to shore up, where it will be welcome? I was at my desk at the cottage when the 6 o’clock news came on–I was glad to be at my desk, having spent most of an hour sorting the jungle out. And another severe wide-spread frost tonight, chirped the announcer. –AAAAAAAAUGH.
I was also in the middle of what I was doing, thank you very much, so I went on with it (muttering) and of course a few minutes later I’d entirely forgotten the frost, the jungle, the geranium . . . and so when I dragged myself up out of storytelling with a gasp it was past 7 o’clock and the temperature was already 36. I had been in shirtsleeves for the morning hurtle, it was so warm!
I had quite a few things to bring back indoors again–the tender camellia, the little rhodo in full blossom, the various forced bulbs that would be perfectly hardy if they hadn’t spent the last two months being tricked into flowering midwinter, and most particularly including the trees about which I’d been enjoying the thought that they’d only arrived a few days ago and could perfectly well go on standing out overnight in temperatures in the 40s. The fringe of small bulb pots, waiting for their contents to be planted out, lining the floor of the kitchen is a sufficient impediment to progress, but the trees . . . not only do they take up way too much room in an already severely space-challenged area, but the thoughtful way the hellhounds sniff them makes me very nervous. Hellhounds are beautifully house-clean, but they’re not used to quite so much of the garden indoors and I worry that they might have an absent-minded moment and. . . .
Weeks ago when I was still resisting grasping the fact that we were going to go on** having below-freezing nights I was often out there wrestling with cardboard and airbags in the dark, and using neighbour-frightening language. Then I grew resigned, and began putting the geranium’s winter ensemble on early enough in the afternoon that I could still see the bamboo stake (that supports the box) before I impaled myself on it. This evening I have discovered that the botanical habiliment moves are by now so well practised I can indeed perform them efficiently in the dark, by feel. I was foresightful enough to get the cardboard box into the greenhouse before the rain started, but I have to say it has felt the humidity of the last two days rather ill, and if this [insert adjective of choice] weather continues, I will need a new box. Possibly one of the ones that the grow light came in.
The grow light works a treat. I can see my carpet fading as I watch. HOWEVER I laid down every huge black plastic bag that I own–left over from unfinished leaf-raking duty last autumn–to protect said carpet and put the pots in little rows like very large thumbtacks on the joins. And threw the switch. BAM. It really is pretty startling.*** And . . . seven hours of sunlight! The jungle trembles in excitement, and waves its tiny shilling-sized daisies!†
And then I went out and bought several cheap plastic tarpaulins, came home, moved the jungle, put some of the tarps down, moved the jungle back again, experimented with hanging a tarp between our own private sun and the sofa and bookshelves, rearranged the suddenly remarkably bare and forlorn-looking windowsills††, and went upstairs with a sigh of relief to settle down at my desk again†††. Just in time for the 6 o’clock news. . . .
But I’m back to PEGASUS again. Yaay.
* * *
* Librarykat has kindly reminded us that this lovely word is from Farscape^. Several people have commented on what a satisfying word it is, as I (manifestly) entirely agree. I have kept meaning to google it–where I now belatedly find Farscape features in pretty much every hit on the first page: not like I would have found tracking it down any effort–and kept forgetting.
Fricking, however, I thought I’d picked up from the recent Battlestar Galactica. . . . but according to Urban Dictionary among others, fricking is a perfectly valid piece of tender-sensibilities-protecting American slang.
^ I am old, and obsessed with things like bell-ringing and roses, and also married to a bloke. But perhaps my last major crush on a TV character+ was for Aeryn Sun. There is, as you know, a ban on this blog for fangirling, but this is perhaps my opportunity to wield the acronym I suggested to my moderators, when we were discussing the management of the phwoar phenomenon: PWIFTIMOFCIWNSN.++ This might usefully be shortened to pwifti.
+ A list begun, it will not amaze you to hear, with Mr Spock
++ Person Who If They Invited Me Out For Coffee I Would Not Say No (And Probably Wouldn’t Even Mention I Don’t Drink Coffee)
** And on, and on
*** One looks around warily for Boris Karloff.
† There had better not be any monkeys. I’ve already found the odd tarantula. But I think I’ve already told you that I’m kind of soft on spiders–if I put them outside they’ll die! I do get a bit testy walking into cobwebs on my way for a pee at 4 am however–Didn’t you read the contract, you eight-legged schlemiel? It says spiders are to spin all webs downstairs, and catch those damned little flies that wake up out of warm compost: or the invasion of whitefly, which occurred the day after I have decided that the latest acquisition is not infested, and put it in with the rest.
†† I could go buy some houseplants. . . . with or without a nascent whitefly invasion.
††† Much to the relief of hellhounds, who don’t like it when I wander fretfully around the house, occasionally pausing to make thumping, rustling and cursing noises: they want me under their eye. Although if I ever go silent, it won’t be long before they come to investigate . . . to make sure I haven’t done anything like lie down on a piece of padded furniture somewhere. And they’re a whole lot quicker off the mark lately, since those two days of bedridden flu.
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