26 January 2012

A couple of days ago, Althea – who had been caravanning in France with her husband-returned and cut my toe and fingernails. (To be strictly correct they haven’t got a caravan but a motorvan, so I suppose I just say had been mottorvaning, if there is such a word). Not my favourite element of personal maintenance and that’s probably why I skipped a day on writing my blog. However, as it is meant to be a complete daily record of my life, however mundane it must be mentioned.

For all of those of you who suffer from cold feet, as I do you, may recall that my dear son bought me a sheepskin lined, electric foot warmer for Christmas. Sadly, it turned out to be a little disappointing as it only heated my toes and that without the lining. Smiler very kindly contacted the people and after some discussion, they decided that there was only one element at the front, the reason being that these foot warmers are frequently used by diabetics and the manufacturers were fearful of overheating or even burning the diabetics feet so they restricted the whole thing to a gentle warmth. Sadly, in my case not are not sufficiently effectively to unfreeze my feet. In any event I have no-oneto blame but myself as I chose this from the Internet.

Fortuitously ‘my lovely’ came back today from her shopping expedition with a couple of pairs of colourful knitted, fleecy lined Norwegian slippers. I immediately donned about her and they certainly seem to do the trick.

I had a moment this afternoon when I could believed that spring was not far away. It was a beautiful sunny day here, with a deep blue sky. No doubt chilly outside but cosily warm in my study enhanced by the direct rays of the sun.

Having completed my morning’s work. I switched over to watch the test match between England and Pakistan, which was being held in Abu Dhabi. Just for a few minutes the sun beat through my study window onto the back of my neck and I could actually feel it’s warmth. Couple that with watching cricket, albeit from halfway round the world. .you can see why I had a momentary glimpse of pleasurable anticipation of the spring and summer to come.

For those of you who enjoyed the video of Rick Mercer tagging bears in British Columbia (attached to my blog. two days ago) you might like to click on the link below and see some more fascinating clips of this man, which came from one of our regular readers, Christine, who lives in that part of the world. Thank you Christine.

https://dmarkcato.com/2012/01/25/24-january-2012/#comments

On the other side of the fence you get the macho Canadian who sends me this sort of message.

Just talked to a guy on the ham radio living in northern Minnesota near the Canadian border… He said that since early this morning the snow is nearly waist high and is still falling… The temperature is dropping and is at about 15 deg F and the north wind is increasing to near gale force… His wife has done nothing but look through the kitchen window and just stare.

He says that if it gets much worse, he may have to let her in!