Rain, rain, go away, come back another day.
Not sure if this seems insensitive given what's happened in Australia and Brazil, but we seem to have been rained on constantly for weeks now. Obviously nothing like the scale of what they've had and they are massive tragedies, but this is my blog so I can only really talk about what's happening to me.
This morning's journey to work was horrible. We've had rain in some form pretty much every day for several weeks, but this morning it was really coming down. And given I set off for work in the dark and just when the traffic's starting to build for rush hour, you can guess why it wasn't much fun.
There's one part of the A31 in particular that seems to form a stream with even the slightest rain. Today it was like driving through a small river. I was actually overtaking a slow moving vehicle and managed to just be in its spray when we hit the river and my windscreen was completely wiped out by it. It took two or three swipes before I could see again, which was not nice.
I guess about the only good thing to say about it is that at least it's coming down as rain and not snow!
Oh - on that note, last weekend when I went shopping the snow had finally cleared from Tesco's car park. It obviously snowed some time back, and they'd piled it all up and the mound they created took ages to go - it was rather bizarre seeing it when it was turning mild and all the other snow had gone, but there was this big pile of nearly black snow.
This last weekend was predicted to be a little bit of a respite from the rain and although it did drizzle a couple of times, I took the combined opportunity of my landlord being away on his winter holiday to sort through some of the boxes in the shed.
My two main goals were to move some stuff that's drifted into my flat back out to the shed and to sort out the blue boxes, which contain my scanned magazines and artbooks. I did these, but it was incredibly hard work and I'm still aching badly today.
What I didn't do was sort all of the boxes. I'd hoped to make a complete list of what was in every box and to wrap everything up in plastic bags, but this proved to be just too much to achieve in one day. I did more than half of it, but when it got to dinner time and I was still way off I decided to quite while I was ahead.
On Sunday I also cleaned the car and, because it was flat-cleaning weekend but I'd been so busy with the boxes, I cleaned my flat then too. It was, to be frank, quite the painful experience as I really ached on the Sunday.
Anyway, at least now I've got a bunch of stuff identified to e-bay, so I can get that ball rolling. Well, assuming we're not going to get a sudden covering of snow as I seem to remember happened last year.
Showing posts with label snow. Show all posts
Showing posts with label snow. Show all posts
Monday, 17 January 2011
Monday, 20 December 2010
bloody hard work
So this last Saturday the snow I was worried about turned up.
It was rather surreal, actually, as I went for my usual Saturday morning walk and it was bloody cold, but totally snow free. Then, just as I was coming up the road to where I live a few flakes started.
I then effectively went back to bed (well, had my breakfast and, because I'd done everything I needed to like shopping and buying petrol during the week before, I just sort of lounged about instead of having a shower and getting up properly) and watched some telly. When I eventually got up for my shower, I glanced out of the window and there was a good 2 inches of snow covering everything.
It was quite a shock just how quickly it had come down, and by the time it eventually stopped, it was a good three inches deep. That was at about lunchtime and I considered going out and clearing some of it away. However, I wasn't sure if any more was expected, and also I had to clean the bed-sit and by the time I was done it was pretty much dark.
When I got up on Sunday, there'd been no overnight snow, but it had clearly been a super cold one, as the snow that had fallen had compacted down quite a bit. The forecasts were saying no new snow was due, so I therefore decided mid-morning to get out and do a bit of snow clearing.
If you've ever done this, you'll know it's incredibly hard work. The weird thing is that snow doesn't weigh very much, but shovelling it around is still really hard. I'd actually bought a spade to put in the car, but it turned out to be a bit rubbish, as the surface of the shovel head was too smooth, so the snow slipped off, inefficiently.
However, my landlord had left a yard broom out and I found that to be much more effective. It's odd - I've always found sweeping the snow is much more effective at clearing it, but it's even harder work, even though you're not lifting anything. You also have to be clever about it, as if you start in the wrong place you end up with a big mound that you then have to shovel anyway.
So yeah, cleared the snow for about an hour and a half and then went for a huge lie down, as I was utterly shattered.
The other thing I did of note this weekend was lots of cooking.
Specifically, I made two lots of my amazing bolognaise sauce. I did one lot on Saturday and one on Sunday. I obviously ate some on each of those days, but I bagged up and froze the rest.
My cupboards and freezer are now stuffed with loads of food, including stuff that needs next to no cooking and other stuff that is basically just ingredients. After last year when I got stuck in and found my pack-rat tendencies a real life saver, this year I've deliberately stocked up so that if I get stuck in like I did again I can last ages.
The only thing I won't have is fresh fruit and veg, so it won't be ideal, but I can still go for a good long while on my "stores". Hopefully, if things go well, I'll be able to get down to Devon to see my dad for Christmas, and then on the way back I can shop and get a big load of said fresh fruit and veg that will last me for a good while.
Oh, and mentioning cooking, I completely forgot to blog about this when it was happening, but a few weeks ago, I discovered I'd bought the most amazing box of eggs.
Basically, every two weeks I buy a new six pack of eggs, and then eat three every week. I actually have all of them on Sunday, which has been my (small) treat day and I use one to make pancakes in the morning and have two as boiled egg sarnis in the evening.
Anyway, this box of six eggs contained five with double-yokes. It was the weirdest thing - cracking open or cutting into the egg to discover it was yet another double-yoker. I'm guessing that it was to do with how they sort them, but it was very freaky.
Oh, and I should also say that, when I weighed myself on Sunday I had gained a pound in weight. Given I was unable to do any walking past Saturday morning and how big work Christmas dinner was, I'm not too surprised at this, and I think it's now pretty much official that the diet is on hold.
Given I've lost more than 40 pounds (about 3 stone) I'm not too bothered about a few weeks of small gain over Christmas, though it would have been nice to hit my target.
It was rather surreal, actually, as I went for my usual Saturday morning walk and it was bloody cold, but totally snow free. Then, just as I was coming up the road to where I live a few flakes started.
I then effectively went back to bed (well, had my breakfast and, because I'd done everything I needed to like shopping and buying petrol during the week before, I just sort of lounged about instead of having a shower and getting up properly) and watched some telly. When I eventually got up for my shower, I glanced out of the window and there was a good 2 inches of snow covering everything.
It was quite a shock just how quickly it had come down, and by the time it eventually stopped, it was a good three inches deep. That was at about lunchtime and I considered going out and clearing some of it away. However, I wasn't sure if any more was expected, and also I had to clean the bed-sit and by the time I was done it was pretty much dark.
When I got up on Sunday, there'd been no overnight snow, but it had clearly been a super cold one, as the snow that had fallen had compacted down quite a bit. The forecasts were saying no new snow was due, so I therefore decided mid-morning to get out and do a bit of snow clearing.
If you've ever done this, you'll know it's incredibly hard work. The weird thing is that snow doesn't weigh very much, but shovelling it around is still really hard. I'd actually bought a spade to put in the car, but it turned out to be a bit rubbish, as the surface of the shovel head was too smooth, so the snow slipped off, inefficiently.
However, my landlord had left a yard broom out and I found that to be much more effective. It's odd - I've always found sweeping the snow is much more effective at clearing it, but it's even harder work, even though you're not lifting anything. You also have to be clever about it, as if you start in the wrong place you end up with a big mound that you then have to shovel anyway.
So yeah, cleared the snow for about an hour and a half and then went for a huge lie down, as I was utterly shattered.
The other thing I did of note this weekend was lots of cooking.
Specifically, I made two lots of my amazing bolognaise sauce. I did one lot on Saturday and one on Sunday. I obviously ate some on each of those days, but I bagged up and froze the rest.
My cupboards and freezer are now stuffed with loads of food, including stuff that needs next to no cooking and other stuff that is basically just ingredients. After last year when I got stuck in and found my pack-rat tendencies a real life saver, this year I've deliberately stocked up so that if I get stuck in like I did again I can last ages.
The only thing I won't have is fresh fruit and veg, so it won't be ideal, but I can still go for a good long while on my "stores". Hopefully, if things go well, I'll be able to get down to Devon to see my dad for Christmas, and then on the way back I can shop and get a big load of said fresh fruit and veg that will last me for a good while.
Oh, and mentioning cooking, I completely forgot to blog about this when it was happening, but a few weeks ago, I discovered I'd bought the most amazing box of eggs.
Basically, every two weeks I buy a new six pack of eggs, and then eat three every week. I actually have all of them on Sunday, which has been my (small) treat day and I use one to make pancakes in the morning and have two as boiled egg sarnis in the evening.
Anyway, this box of six eggs contained five with double-yokes. It was the weirdest thing - cracking open or cutting into the egg to discover it was yet another double-yoker. I'm guessing that it was to do with how they sort them, but it was very freaky.
Oh, and I should also say that, when I weighed myself on Sunday I had gained a pound in weight. Given I was unable to do any walking past Saturday morning and how big work Christmas dinner was, I'm not too surprised at this, and I think it's now pretty much official that the diet is on hold.
Given I've lost more than 40 pounds (about 3 stone) I'm not too bothered about a few weeks of small gain over Christmas, though it would have been nice to hit my target.
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