2025 has arrived!
Sam was up in Carlisle, Becky, Sophie and I spent an unremarkable night in to see in the new year, before rising fresh headed at a sensible hour and waving Sophie off on her journey back to Cardiff before 9am. It has been a great Christmas/New Year period – relaxed, comfortable and calm. It has seemed a long holiday – Madeira seems a long time ago – and I return to school tomorrow refreshed and recharged ready for the term to come. I have put on a few (too many) pounds, have read a lot, pottered and enjoyed a slow pace of life for a few weeks. I have run a bit, including a couple of shorter 4K runs – perhaps this is the future: less time and less draining, but still getting some exercise – but annoyingly yesterday, 5k into a 6k run I tweaked my left hamstring and had to walk the last k. Also my back had begun to hurt, and got worse after I got home. Now is pretty much better, and my arm/shoulder/neck problem that plagued my last few weeks does seem to have diminished to the point of being over.
After a week or so of sitting under a grey blanket of miasma, on Thursday the weather changed and it was clear and cold for the first time in a long time. Becky and I headed of to Shapwick for a pleasant morning walk.
And on Friday – I was in school on Inset – it got really cold, a hard frost everywhere …
… that persisted into Saturday. I still had some geraniums flowering on Christmas day, so I fashioned a fleece curtain for them, hoping I can keep them going into the summer. But in the garden the seed heads looked specular coated in frost and and a number of bulbs are poking proudly up, something to provide hope and interest over the coming weeks and months.
And last night it snowed! It had been forecast, so no surprise, and at about 7pm it started to snow for a couple of hours – at first very wet, but then settling on cars and then the road.
But before we went to bed, it had turned to rain and this morning was just another grey, wet Sunday in Somerset. In fact, the temperature has climbed today and felt mild when I popped out to potter, but is due to turn cold again mid-week.