Winter Comes

The wind howls around the corridors, nibbling at the office workers.
The stripy jumper is fetched from the back of the wardrobe.
The puddles glint, and the bicycle takes corners more slowly instead of being flung around them with gay abandon.
The latest Silly Hat Trend appears upon the heads of students, and at the stall that sells Smelly Balls outside the Northumberland Street branch of Dixons.
Hat and gloves become an automatic reflex, and Doc Martens cease to peep shyly from beneath the bed, and stomp merrily about the streets, insulating their owners’ feet.
Christmas decorations cease to become a source of vague it’s-too-damn-early-we’ve-not-even-had-Halloween-yet irritation, and instead a reminder of joys to come.
Hot chocolate becomes a necessity not a luxury.
Women don their skimpiest clothing for going out at the coldest time of the year.
The populace scoff currywurst and slurp mulled wine whilst contemplating buying a sponge soap and a trapper’s hat from the Continental market.
Marks and Spencers devotes its attention to fattening the populace now, that it may sell them diet ready meals in the New Year.
Winter comes to Newcastle.

Normally I Post This Stuff On The Other Blog

The other blog being the Lonkblig of infamous repute. However, this fits better here: the 10 worst cycling crashes ever. Do not read if squeamish.










Right now this damn blog's a misnomer anyway. I'm neither cycling nor diving, thanks to the weather, and it sucks. I've seen people out and about on bikes, but they're either a) on a mountain bike or b) accident statistics waiting to happen. I just keep my fingers crossed that the temperature gets above freezing regularly soon. I will cycle in wind and rain, but not ice and snow.

As for the diving? I'm starting to hallucinate the smell of wet neoprene, like a coffee addict doing detox hallucinating espresso.

It's as well I gave up on that whole "trying to be normal" thing a while back, now, isn't it?

Salt and Grit

Are two things this nation apparently doesn't have enough of.

Is it just me, or does anyone else find themselves wondering at the fact that often the people rushing to blame the government for failing to foresee the worst winter weather we've had in at least a decade and lay in sufficient supplies, are often the same people who themselves didn't buy any grit, salt or shovels, and are now complaining that they can't get out of their houses? What happened to self-reliance?

In other news, the giant icicles on top of my house are now melting. I've half-sad, half-relieved. They were very pretty, but at the same time they did add that certain element of danger to popping out to buy some milk at Tesco. I can see the front page of the Chronicle now: "Woman Buying Groceries Killed By Falling Ice". Not my chosen epitaph. (Then again, my chosen epitaph has already been taken: "Bugger this, I wanted a better world". Top marks to anyone who gets the reference.)

Giant Penises In The Snow

.... is not the name of Tracey Emin's latest work, funnily enough. It's what was spotted on the lawn in the centre of my office on the first day back last Monday.

Someone had carefully walked through the snow and drawn a giant penis in it.

How we laughed as we scurried to the windows to watch the security men trying to cross it out by walking over it. Leading to the effect of someone trying to scribble out graffiti on a toilet wall.

I don't know what was going through their heads when they were doing that, but rarely have I ever been so glad that I hold the job I hold.

Happy New Year.

In the Bleak Midwinter

...Frosty wind made moan.

Well, I have returned to my home after an enjoyable week and a bit away from Newcastle, whilst I visited my friends and family in my home town over the holidays.

I very nearly didn't make it there. I set off later than planned on Wednesday 23rd, and was making good time down the A1, when, shortly before Wetherby, I realised that my headlights were glinting off the road ahead of me, and the reason they were doing this was because the road was frozen. Not reassuring.

I slowed down to 50mph, which is when the blizzard hit. Light snow at first, getting progressively heavier, and about fifteen minutes into this, I realised that I couldn't see the lane markings, due to the snow, and was driving in the left-hand lane on the principle that if I went onto the rumble strips, at least I'd know I was straying out of the lane.

I don't panic whilst driving, not because I'm particularly cool-headed, but simply because panicking doesn't make driving any easier. I will admit that I was thinking "Hmm. This really isn't good. Really, really, not a good driving situation".

I slowed down to 30mph and followed the lights of the car in front of me, then the gritting lorry in front of me. As the sign for Wetherby services appeared, I wondered if I should try following the gritting lorry all the way home to Wakefield. Then it turned off towards Wetherby services, my brain calculated the factors involved here (nearly midnight, freezing, blizzard, unlit motorway, fewer and fewer cars on the roads, it would take another hour at the speed I was going to get there, God knew what the roads in Wakefield would be like after I turned off the motorway, and for all I knew there was a jack-knifed lorry around the corner), and made the fast decision to get off the road.

I drove very slowly round the snowiest roundabout I've seen in some years, and did something I've never done before; I pulled in at a roadside hotel and asked if they had any rooms going free for the night. (If they hadn't, Plan B was to kip in the chairs in reception.) Luckily, they did, and I took a double room, breakfast included, £50. As I headed off to retrieve my suitcase and laptop from the car, a small queue of weary travellers was forming behind me.

Later, I called my mum to tell her I would be seeing her and the rest of the family later that night.

I don't panic whilst driving. But my hands were shaking as I dialled the number.

Other than that, it was an excellent Christmas, and much enjoyed by all. (For those of you wondering, the conditions the following morning were snowy, as shown in the photo above, which is the view out of my hotel room window that morning, but much easier: I was home 40 minutes after I set off.) Happy New Year.