With the first half of January seeming to whizz by, time seems to have slowed of late and grey January rolls on with little to report on. The weather has changed from clagged in cold and grey to big, blustery grey, with strong winds on Friday, some welcome sunshine yesterday, and more strong winds and a lot of rain today. This afternoon got very dark, the darkness only punctuated by a couple of flashes of lightening, accompanied by the booming roar of thunder. With the murk gone, it is nice to be able to see the tour again.
I’ve not done a lot this week other than work, sleep, eat and read. Had my haircut on Thursday, didn’t run today as yesterday, in the last 5 mins of a 90 min match, I tweaked my left hamstring (can still feel it now.) Its good that’s its now still light at 5pm, the bulbs are showing promise, but they are still a while away from flowering (although at school I have seen the first few snowdrops and crocus, at home I don’t think my snowdrops are far from flowering.)
Not too much to report, don’t have the January blues, but not too much to shout about either. Beginning to ponder a few projects for February half-term, hopefully it will be dry (and warm-ish) so can I do some jobs outside that I am lining up.
The cold of last week has given way to mid-January grey murk. Its been damp, overcast and at times foggy; the middle of the week it got quite warm (these things are relative – “quite warm” means not freezing in this context) but as the week ended the temperature has dropped again, to a cold, damp 3 degrees.
No beautiful blue skies this week!
But the bulbs are beginning to show in strength, the robins are returning, the evenings are beginning to get lighter – its not dark until 5pm – and on Thursday, as I walked home (in daylight!) I could hear a blackbird singing.
Work has been busy, and tiring, I enjoyed a long snooze this afternoon. This morning I went for a run – I did my “new” 4K circuit and added on an extra km to make 5K, and the Christmas weight is slowly started to be shed, although at 12 stone 7 I’m still about half a stone off my target. All my aches, pains, and niggles seem to have gone away, most notably my bad neck/arm/finger – I was a bit worried that the return to work and regular use of a mouse would cause it to go bad again, but no, the other evening whilst sat watching TV I realised I was pain free. Life ticks on, with everyone looking to the future: Sophie has begun house hunting, Sam has returned to Cardiff (from London) today, he can see the end in sight of his degree, and Becky and I have booked a week in Nice, in late July, after Sam’s graduation. So not wishing our lives away, but January offers little other than the hope of what’s to come, and its exciting times for us all.
Back to school, and its been a cold week! The temperature really started to plummet on Tuesday, and its been cold ever since, with sub-zero temperatures most nights, and not much warmer during the day. I’ve used a fleece blanket over some geraniums that have still been flowering (on the shelf by the back gate) – looking at them today, they are still hanging on in there, whilst any that were unprotracted have been turned to a blackened mush.
I didn’t get to see it (sadly) but on Wednesday we had a Greater Spotted Woodpecker in the garden (well, next doors), a visitor we’ve not had before, and its not been seen since, but feels a little more “exotic and exciting” than the normal robins and blackbirds.
Car woes …
Wednesday was cold, but initially dry as I began refereeing at Kingweston, but then the snow started to fall and everything got damp, and much colder, and by the end of the game my hands were freezing, despite my gloves. Anyway, I put my bags in the boot of the Micra ready to head home, turned the key, and nothing, nada, zilch. Bugger. I grabbed a lift home, and then had Becky drive me back to KW, connected up the jump leads and old faithful burst into life. I don’t think the battery had drained – I think this is the problem Sophie had back in April. I’m annoyed that I didn’t think to just disconnect the negative terminal and reconnect it – it would have helped the fault diagnosis – but I didn’t. I was also annoyed I didn’t have my jump leads or booster battery in the car in the car, I do now. Used it again without incident on Saturday …
Today I’ve enjoyed pottering, both inside and out. Having lost my jeff and info @dotsandspots emails (due to my server migration – I hadn’t considered this), today I resolved the problem by buying email hosting from Ecohost – £20+VAT for the year. Took a little head scratching to get it all set up, but not too tricky, a good job well done. And I also trimmed down a “bush” in the front to bring its height down level with the others. At the moment its just dead/dormant brown sticks and twigs, but before too long it will, I’m sure burst back into bloom; much easier to manage in its dormant state.
I was “aware” of my tweaked hamstring when I refereed on Wednesday , back was fine, and by Saturday’s game my leg was fine, too. But, with about 20 mins to go, I felt a similar niggle on the other leg, so decided not to run today.
The temperature is due to creep up a little this week, I hope so, I’m not a fan of the cold.
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.
