Snowed in

Two weeks of looking after the family over Christmas but they were on the plane back to Tokyo this morning and now I feel like putting my feet up for at least a week myself, maybe reading a novel (or more likely an interesting book on railway history) and generally living the life of Riley. Absolutely no fat chance of that though. No sooner were their cases onto that luggage trolley in the foggy dark and bound for the British Airways check-in than I was on my way to B&Q in search of emulsion paint and rawlplugs and lampshades and the like. Good job that they have a sale on at the moment. This next few weeks are going to be even busier than the last two I fear.

We had an unexpectedly interesting time over the holidays. When did we last have so much snow here in northern England in December? All those planned excursions I had in mind went 'by the board' and we found ourselves well and truly snowed up from Sunday to Wednesday, no chance at all of getting the car even to the end of the farm lane let alone a mile down the steep hill to the village. Luckily I'd been paying attention to the weather forecast and we had enough food laid in to last the whole week if we were stranded. Actually you could hardly have booked a more interesting holiday for someone from sunny Hiroshima-ken where this sort of stuff just doesn't ever happen. All those robins and snowmen and horses racing around the snowy paddock, it was straight off a Dickens-style Christmas card. If some stagecoach had gone clattering by our cottage window with men in top hats clinging to the reins it would have been no surprise.


Interesting how relatively easy it is to 'let go' of plans and objectives when this kind of natural drama unfolds. There isn't much you can do about a storm, you might as well just stoke up that coal fire and make another cup of coffee or go out for a walk across the fields. But if it is so easy to remain unattached in circumstances like these that why can't we be equally philosophical about traffic jams? In both cases we lose control - or actually the imagined control - of our own destinies. So why do we foam at the mouth over one and not the other. Que sera, sera, don't you think so?

Anyway, nice to be back somewhere connected to the internet again. I've been missing it all.