More whining about the weather
It’s sleeting. If we’re lucky we may get more snow.* Maybe I should just stop locking the car. What’s in it to steal, barring a pair of old wellies and this week’s Abel and Cole packaging?** And half a bottle of windscreen washer fluid and motor oil ditto. And I don’t want to think about the depth of despair that would drive anyone to steal frayed, hairy, pawprinted dog bedding. Probably if it’s cold and wet enough the doors will freeze even if they aren’t locked and then I’ll have to crowbar them open and then they won’t close properly and . . .
I’m not actually sure what I do about poor Wolfgang. The single garage space is full of 45-year-old MGB. But my Subaru stood outdoors year-round in Maine and he only froze his locks at about 40 below: but we do soggy cold in England, unfortunately, and in Maine they do dry. I can remember six, eight-inch blizzards that you couldn’t make snowpersons out of because it was just too frelling powdery. It’s got above freezing most of the day most days since our three inches last Monday week but there are still a few snowpersons left around here because they’re packed ice persons.
Sleet. Gods. I’m worrying I should be ordering a spare hellhound coat because the one Chaos wore last winter after he was ill has some barbed-wire tears*** in it and it’s no longer waterproof. We can’t have too much of this staying home in the warm and dry thing or I’ll have to stop eating entirely† . . . and the hellhounds probably will. Stop eating entirely, I mean.
I have meant to post this any number of times over the last fortnight, since it came in, and I’ve been so busy girning and greeting about our own weather I’ve never quite got round to it. But a friend who lives on the wild American prairie where they have real winter sent me this story of life with a very nice thin-skinned thoroughbred chestnut mare:
We have gone right past “Jeez (Thelma and) Louise it’s cold”
past “Holy crap it’s cold”
WAY past [frell this faecal matter] it’s cold”
and we are entering “It’s as cold as a brass toilet seat in Siberia” cold.
I finally broke down and put a rug on Addy – she just hasn’t as much of a coat as the others have – and was expecting some pyrotechnics as she’d been in her stall, cold and bored, for 24 hours and the rug was new and rattly with lots of noisy crinkly nylon bits, and it came out of an exploding (really, it burst in pieces, it had become all brittle because of extreme cold) plastic zipper bag, and I knew it would be noisy unfolding and ice-cold when it hit her back so…
I held it up and waited for her to run to the back of her stall in fear (or, alternatively, pitch a fit), and she stood like a statue and NICKERED at me. She remained motionless and continued to nicker, very softly, non-stop until the blanket was ON and adjusted. This meant that I had tiny soft nickers as accompaniment during every second of the several minutes I needed to do up the buckles, lengthen cross-surcingles, cross the leg straps, etc. Very cold hands make this sort of thing difficult and slow. She didn’t mind. She was a very, very happy girl.
And it’s blueberry with lilac trim, so looks quite fetching on her shiny chestnut self, but I don’t think her appearance was what she was nickering about. She saw it and said “Yes YES YES THAT’S FOR ME, oh THANK YOU!” Plastic, nylon, cold and noise? Pfffffffft! She KNEW what the rug was and she WANTED IT.
I know the feeling. I was a thin-skinned chestnut mare in a previous life.†† I still like blueberry and lilac. And layers.
Sleet. Whimper.
* * *
* I should maybe get back to the cottage early. No! I need more time torturing my piano! Piano lesson tomorrow and Battle Gem^ is proving fractious!
^ work in progress. Or possibly not in progress.
** Organic groceries. They deliver. Great idea, pity about the prices. But you’re supposed to recycle the packaging, which is also a great idea, except that this means your car boot is full of Styrofoam and flattened cardboard boxes all the time because those of us with no closets have no place to put this kind of thing indoors.^ I regularly forget to put the stuff out for the next pick up and there have been weeks when it wouldn’t all fit in the boot. Well, it’s a small boot. There have also been weeks when the three or four Styrofoam coolboxes would just fit in the boot which meant that hellhounds and I had a background chorus of squeakysqueakysqueaky all week long as we commuted to the countryside.
^ The top of the dog crate is full of trees. The sitting-room is full of jungle. Everywhere else is full of books.
*** Gods I frelling hate barbed wire. As far as I’m concerned it’s right up there with handguns and Prozac in that it’s been used so irresponsibly for so long by so many that there’s a very strong argument for banning its use altogether. Who is the chucklehead who routinely puts a strand of barbed wire over and under the middle and/or bottom rail of a stile, so any dog trying to get through gets (a) a gouge torn out of the back of its neck (b) a furrow dug out of its belly (c) both. Alternatively, the person accompanying said dog(s) can get down on her hands and knees and put her hands over the barbs so the dogs can scrape past.
† And I have all this G&B’s gingerbread choc to eat!! I wouldn’t want it to get stale!!
†† Not necessarily one of the nice ones. ‘Chestnut mare, beware.’ Yes. I was one of those. Arguably still am, with a few fudged physical details like colouring, number of legs, etc.
comments
Please join the discussion at Robin McKinley's Web Forum.