nineveh_uk

* The very hot weather finally broke and it is cooler, though still not requiring me to wear more than short-sleeves most of the time. Tonight I am in trousers and a light cardi, for the first time in ages. Alas, my hope that when the weather broke I would feel a lot better, while correct yesterday, was disproved today, most of which I spent feeling crushingly fatigued. Damn. The long Covid recovery continues to move forward, but it's very much three steps forward, two steps back, and the last couple of weeks haven't been the best, with some other kind of virus**. This is extremely frustrating, not least because I'm very conscious that this was a period in which I could have hoped to get some more interesting work started off for next academic year alongside the routine stuff, and as it is I am going to be pushed to get the routine stuff done. Grr.

* There is so much I could say about the weather, about the total failure to invest in infrastructure over the past decade, about politics, but I really can't bear thinking about it.

* There has at least been plenty of summer sport to watch when I've felt rough. Though after Olive and Mabel over the pandemic I am now unable to hear Andrew Cotter's commentary without seeing the competitors as labradors.

* What with lots of athletics and having finished Sleuth of the Ming Dynasty, of which more anon, I have taken a break from Cdramas and being going through whatever has seemed easy on my DVR or iPlayer at the time. The exception to this has been Australian drama The Newsreader, courtesy of BBC4. A nice 6 episodes, it focuses on the occupants of a commercial TV newsroom in the mid-1980s, with Clark-Kent-like up-and-coming producer who would like to be on the news desk Dale Jennings, and experienced, but inevitably being a woman not as secure as her position should be for her talent, Helen. There are occasional moment when I find myself thinking of the various counterparts on Drop the Dead Donkey, but that's a tribute to the accuracy of the latter rather than a slight to the former. Good mainstream drama, well-written, extremely well acted. I felt I would have caught a few more things culturally had I been my age and Australian, but that didn't matter. I'm very pleased to learn that a second series is currently being filmed.

* I need to buy my brother-in-law a birthday present. I had been thinking of getting in ahead of his look at the Hugo's list for Christmas, and give him She Who Became the Sun as I felt this might be a case of fictional overlap for us, until the ( unexpected ), which felt like it might be a bit much from ones sister-in-law. Though really that is me just being a wimp. I might ask Middle Sister if he owns/enjoys A Memory Called Empire, and if so play safe and go for A Desolation Called Peace. Then I can get SWBtS if it appears on his Christmas list.

**Many negative LFTs, but also it just didn't feel like Covid.

As someone who doesn't normally object to winter, I am more than ready for it to be spring. It has been wet and windy rather than especially cold, but windchill and damp does as good a job at trapping me in the house at the moment. The odd daffodil is very nice, but I am looking forward to April.

Still, it is Friday. I've got a bit of a sniffle and am looking forward to a weekend of watching winter sport from the sofa, some art, and attempting to tidy the swathes of paper on the dining table. Plus admiring my glorious amaryllis.

That it is very gloomy at half-past three on a cloudy November afternoon, and yet as so often I am. And resentful. Though at least the cold snap has improved my sleep, if not my heating bill. Going into the office one morning a week still feels like a slog and I'm far less efficient in the following afternoon, but at least it is warm. The trees, which looked lovely at the weekend visiting antisoppist, are now increasing denuded of leaves, and this weekend's combination of hold and wind will probably finish them off. Winter draws on, as my father would say. Which turns out to be a song... Here's Gracie Fields.



They don't make 'em like that any more.

First day of the holiday, no milk, run out of bread. I could throw some clothes on and dash to the supermarket. Or, I could have cake for breakfast. Cake it is!

I am going on holiday on Monday, and as packing inevitably expands to take up all the time available, I am not packing until tomorrow. I am also hoping that the weather will get better, because I am supposed to be going hiking in western Austria and today it is pouring with rain and 9C. Apparently my run of summer holidays with guaranteed good weather is at an end... Naturally last week it was mid-20s temperatures and sunny. But at least I have some new walking trousers as well as a new hat and there will be fresh air and mountains, even if the fresh air might be a bit damp. I shall read books and eat food cooked by other people, and inevitably not do any writing.

But now I had better get up and re-apply the waterproofing to my jacket.

Apparently it is 8 January 2016 today. I’m not sure how it can be so, but reputable sources say that it is, so I suppose I must believe them. A whole week into the new year! A whole week gone at work. Work has actually been quite good; that is, it has been much the same as usual, but I have had vastly more energy and inclination for it than I did in the last couple of weeks of term before Christmas.

Anyway, I had a thoroughly enjoyable Christmas holiday, including:

• Many delightful presents. I am particularly hoping that the digital radio will get me into radio listening more regularly (not just the cricket). I’ve dropped the habit in recent years, which is silly because I really enjoy it.
• An excellent train journey up, a very trying journey down.
• Much food, including the successful cooking of the hare. You get an enormous quantity of meat for £8.50 on a hare.
• Visible snow twice! A miracle given the weather. We had one actually cold day, on New Year’s Day, which happily involved a walk, although the pace that three year olds walk means that I had to go and run up a nearby hill and then catch up half-way through in order not to freeze.
• Some splendid entertainment, of which reviews to come, and also the karaoke, which was a great success. Middle Sister’s rendition of Dire Straights’ ‘Romeo and Juliet’ is fortunately greatly improved since I last heard it and is now quite impressive.
• No work for a fortnight, and most other people being off for all of that, meaning few emails to return to.
• Surprisingly little reading, including only a tiny bit of Yuletide. I am looking on that as some fanfic treats to look forward to in the rest of winter.
• Some successful sales shopping: after saying I was not getting winter work skirts any more, I bought a new one, also drinking glasses, a warm cardigan, and if I get to the shops this lunchtime, possibly a work jacket. [ETA: I didn't get a jacket, it turns out that the reason it was marked down was that it looked like a sack when worn.]

The train problems were caused by a damaged viaduct on the west coast line and a tree on the east coast one, both caused by the absolutely appalling weather in northern England and southern Scotland. Seeing some of the areas of Leeds and York that flooded was staggering; there were areas that haven’t flooded in many decades looking like rivers. Meanwhile Cameron is claiming that he’s investing new money in a Leeds flood scheme, when it's the same money already announced, much of which the council came up with. I would like to think that this ‘winter’ is a wake-up call to the whole country and its politicians on climate change, but I fear it won’t be.

And speaking of the weather, according to the Independent “the coldest winter in 58 years is expected to hit the country.” I think we can all say “yeah, right” to that one. Still, there was actually frost this morning for only the second time this season, and a bit of moderate chill will be no bad thing. Meanwhile it has been -40C in northern Norway, with some interesting pictures. Though I can’t link to the best ones, because this is the week of the Tour de Ski, so I can’t look at any websites that might have skiing news on until I have got home and caught up with the videos. There is nothing like watching winter sports each night to ease the return to the office routine.

*Little more than a week of January to go! Cue the now routine call of “how did that happen?” I am, as ever, deeply disappointed that of the warm/cold masses doing their usual stuff about the British Isles, the warm is winning so that it is going to rain all tomorrow and much of the weekend. It could have been snow! I even get to be socially responsible in wishing that, because snow would have reached the rivers more slowly.

*I am delighted to see strong reviews for La Fanciulla del West, which I will be seeing at Opera North in Leeds in a fortnight. It’s seldom performed in the UK, and I’ve wanted to see it for ages. Unusually for Puccini, it has a happy ending. The most well-known aria is Ch'ella mi creda, which is magnificent though far too short. Also unusually for Puccini, it’s a dramatic song of someone being stoic.

*A trifle irritated with the Guardian’s report on the National Fish and Chip award, which insists on calling it fish’n’chips. I agree with the commenter who observes that the article’s insistence on fish cooked to order is completely wrong. A good fish and chip shop will have sufficient custom that cooked fish won’t be kept standing, because someone’s there to buy it, so you won’t have to wait. Under normal circumstances, if you have to wait 15 minutes for your fish to be cooked especially for you it’s because they don’t have enough trade to be really good at it.

*Announcement of the Winter Olympic squads also brought the news that there is a Facebook page dedicated to the Norwegian curling team’s patterned trousers.

*Interesting news about the possibility of a small glacier in Scotland in the 1700s during the Little Ice Age. This isn’t a new hypothesis, but one that there’s been quite some exploration of during the last century – what’s new is the hitherto-elusive evidence.

ETA: Exciting British wildlife news! First wild beaver in 500 years in England confirmed in Devon.* There was at least one sighting in the summer, but this one has actually been filmed. That said, it is probably not the first wild beaver to have lived in England in 500 years, as there is good evidence of one living on the Thames in Oxfordshire within the last decade. Like wild boars, it looks like they’ll be managing the come back on their own (with a little help from poorly secured enclosures).

*Cabin Pressure people, near Ottery St Mary. I think this is a job for caulkhead.

A problem with the UK is that there really isn't anywhere in it that has both reliably warm summers, and reliably cold winters. There isn't even anywhere that has just one of them. Yes, it's that time of year when I start watching webcams elsewhere and weather threads for vaguely here (i.e. 400 miles further north) and hope for not particularly likely weather scenarios.

Though if I'm hoping for cold, maybe I ought to bring the basil in.