Bah Humbug*
The weather continues inexpressibly delightful. Rain, sleet, hail, snow, freezing rain**, freezing fog. And occasional lightning and thunder, just to make sure we’re paying attention.*** Wolfgang, however, bless his pointed little carburettor, is part gecko†, and we’re still getting up and down various hills . . . slowly.††
The splendour of wading and crashing through the countryside also carries on in rejoicing. We’ve had melt/freeze so long now that you never know what the hell you’re walking on: you may fall through the glacier at any moment and find yourself up to the ankles in cooooooold bog. But as I keep saying it’s the pavements in town, and the footpaths close round its edges, that are titanium-alloy ice from everybody and their dog(s) trampling it like the smith’s hammer whacks the nonsense out of that berserker’s blade. And it’s not gonna melt. Barring a very large blowtorch I think we’ve had it till July.
And have I mentioned I have to ring bells tomorrow morning at 8:45?
Right now I have to go decorate a tree. †††
* * *
* Guarded good news about—let’s call him Luke. He’s still in intensive care, but he’s come round and the surgeon is pleased and says he’s ‘making progress’.
** http://www.wmur.com/weather/4086245/detail.html
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1668/whats-the-difference-between-hail-sleet-and-freezing-rain Hunh. You pays yer money and takes yer pick. I think hail is hail any time of year and sleet is slightly solider freezing rain. Sleet stings. Hail bruises.
***FOR PITY’S SAKE WE’RE PAYING ATTENTION
† Interesting in a German car
†† We tend to go down the main street hill at mmmph o’clock in the morning in a kind of gentle, engaged half pass.^ But there’s nobody else on the road so hey. And the side of the road you drive up is clearer, for some reason^^, and we stay as far over as possible toward the kerb on our way to the mews at lunchtime to give people on the downhill side plenty of room for canter pirouettes or whatever.
My little cul de sac is probably the most fun per square inch though. Drivers who aren’t used to it get the jimjams in good weather^^^; it’s narrow enough that you can’t get doors on both sides of your car fully open at the same time, and the walls are brick and flint house walls. So as you make that turn up from the main road you also have several split-second tactical decisions to make simultaneously about traction, velocity, how devoted you are to your fenders maintaining their current configuration, and the run you’re going to need to make it to the summit in current underwheel conditions.
^ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half_pass
^^ Trees
^^^ Which is also why Atlas is building me a brick planter this winter+. I’m frelling tired of morons in SUVs who haven’t figured out that that big circular thing over the go pedal is a steering wheel taking out my flower pots because they can. If you haven’t run into my staircase, which is twice the width, you don’t have to run into my flower pots. Grrrrrrr.++
+ Supposing the weather lets him.
++ Although after this winter~ I may not have any pots left. ~~ That putting-them-up-on-feet-to-allow-free-drainage thing is a scam invented by the makers of plant-pot feet.
~ And for anyone who doesn’t read Twitter, or who possibly didn’t bother to click on this link, retweeted by and from the inestimable David Malki# http://bit.ly/62GkYi click it now, okay?
Yes, that David Malki
~~ Although I should have some plants. Atlas and I did finally get the green/summerhouse at Third House more or less put together. I think. Now I have to remember to keep Jungle Number Two watered. Jungle Number One seems merely to have expanded to fill the available space, like housework according to Betty Friedan. The top of the hellhound crate is clear, but I’ve somehow got more plants in windowsills at the cottage than ever before; indoor light has become green, and I’m expecting the monkeys and the toucans to move in any day.
Sigh. I was going to have Third House sorted by Christmas this year. I was going to keep the Gift Hoard and the Gift Wrapping (Hoard) at Third House so I don’t spend the entire month of December tripping over it at the cottage.
††† Funny thing, the first decorations to go up are the velvet roses. 
We’ve also got a decorated lamp this year. This is the wreath that hangs on the front door, right? Not in this weather.
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