Sunday 11 February 2007

Snow and such

So, it snowed on Thursday (as soon as I walked out the door, sans brolly). It snowed for about 5 hours. Sadly nothing stuck here, unlike the rest of the country, which had 7-11 cm; similar to Shreveport, this pretty much slowed Britain down. B was not able to leave on his silly-o'clock-in-the-morning flight to South Africa, where he planned to surprise his parents -- so that didn't happen and no one was surprised. Airports all over were closed on Thursday, but back open on the Friday (hoorah) and lots of distressed travellers were available to be interviewed on the news. Because seeing displeased people with a whinging venue is always useful and informative. Personally, I preferred video of toddler dressed like the little brother in Christmas Story who tilted over with his arms straight out (except it was sad when he screeched).

Unfortunately, this weather prevented E's Friday meeting in London (that, along with the extra snow in Cardiff on Friday), so he was not able to make his planned excursion to lovely sunny Norwich for the weekend.

On a side note, there must be something in the water here. Or the dirt. There are SOOOO many bunnies here! Literally herds of bunnies (this is the wrong collective noun, but my shoulders hurt. Hurting shoulders IS relevant here.) -- on my way to work, they are in the field alongside the road; in the evening, there is so much rustling in the leaves in the university park on my walk home, that if not for the flashes of white doing hopping motions, one might fear stalkers. On Friday evening, there were at least 15 bunnies that hopped across my path! Readers may recall my observation of hundreds of bunnies from the train windows on the way through East Anglia in October (my interview trip); it is my opinion that there is a larger rabbit population in this region than in any other in Britain. We shall have to investigate, shan't we, Steffi? :)

Norwich was not sunny this weekend at all, as I proved and possibly provoked by not listening to my inner voice yesterday and returning to the house for sensible brolly. Since my decision was not to walk 2 minutes back, instead showing fortitude in the face of weather in dedicated postal person sort of way, the rain just sneakily gradually persisted down mistier and mistier in a most annoying sort of way. My goal was to walk to the only yarn shop in Norwich, Norfolk Yarn, and from thence proceed into the centre and toodle up and down the interesting little streets with their interesting little shoppes in search of something non-black to wear to Irish wedding. Norfolk Yarn is actually pretty far away from my house, but it seemed useful to my search for a home, and healthful besides, to explore. This cunning plan was drenched (pun fully intended) by the time I didn't make it to the shop (in my head, the address was 188, when in actuality, it is 288 -- blast, blast, blast. See, my notes to myself ARE helpful).

Soaking wet with spirits dampened, I tromped to the nearest sheltered bus stop and felt cold and vexed until a bus came along so that £1.50 could be traded for a ride back into town. At the first stop, after declining a man's offer to let her get on the bus ahead of him, a poor burka-ed woman got on and argued with the driver about the number of tickets she had paid for since he wanted her to buy another one as there were more children than tickets. So she counted the children, claiming one free child or something and then tickets for the driver; he remained unamused. Then, she said she had no more money and he told her to just get on the bus. Approximately, 3.4 seconds later, she and two of the children started screaming to 'STOP THE BUS!!!' Although four elementary children plus two in a stroller got on the bus with her, another one apparently got left at the stop -- oopsy! THEN, they wanted the bus driver to wait with the bus until one daughter ran back to the stop and came back with said deserted child. He declined to acquiesce this proposal (this means 'No') so they trooped, quite literally, off the bus into the rain. I felt sorry for them, but it was pretty funny.

So, I walked and shopped (i HATE shopping) until my coat was soaked, my brain was tired and my eyes hurt from all those horrid lights they put in dressing rooms to make one look firstly like one is suffering from cyrosis and secondly like a doughnut with legs. Like that stupid Pillsbury DoughBoy, who is a mascot I strongly dislike. Then money was taken out of my account for the rent and depression set in. Oh well... So it was time to head home. Fortunately, due to nauseating lighting skills in shoppes, no absurd purchases were made :) So, all the benefits of retail therapy (if you can call such inanity therapy -- other than the book shoppes of course) with none of the guilt! Success!

Today, the umbrella went with on outing to the Earlham Farmers' Market, and did it rain? A single drop? No, definitely not. So, in addition to my week's worth of din-dins, I had to coordinate this very large stick (although it is a really attractive stick, with faces of famous women authors). By solid afternoon, the sun was shining quite permanently and it was a lovely walk back home, although it was kind of windy.

So I rested by knitting, talking on Skype to various and sundry, and watching Pirates. Now it is time for sleepy bye-bye so as to be spiffy for second week of induction.

No comments: