No Snow Here

I am rubbish at snow.  I panic and walk like a duck at the first sign of a snowflake on the path.

DH is in bed.  He's got the same bug I have had, and it has taken a toll.  I'm leaving him to it.

Bear is doing okay.  We are braced for the Doctor Who episode that will be broadcast tonight.  It is supposed to be a tear jerker.  It is broadcast too late for bear's bedtime, so I will be dishing out heavy duty cuddles tomorrow morning.

Fortunately my brother is planning on taking him out tomorrow, so that should help cheer bear up.  He will get excessive cuddles from my brother's dogs and a chance to have a go at coding.

To be honest I am feeling flatter than a steam rollered pancake.  I suspect the cough has been quite bad.  It's a great excuse to curl up with my knitting and watch tv.

Mother was Right

My late mother was convinced that evil cat was somehow related to a wild type species and wasn't entirely domesticated.  Anyone who encountered evil cat would understand the thinking behind this because even though she was less than eight weeks old when we got her (possibly younger, possibly less than six weeks) she was never entirely tame.  There was always the hint of feral about her.  Mind you, that's true of a lot of cats, but evil cat did have that air of distance - and aggression.  She was relentless to poor psycho cat.

Mother said that she had read somewhere about small cats that lived in Africa and had black paws.  Evil cat had entirely black paws, including black pads.  Evil cat also had the softest, densest coat I have ever encountered.  Then reading an article on Bored Panda I found a reference to Felis Nigripes or the Black Footed Cat.  

There is a lot of similarities.  I could really believe that evil cat is a result of an encounter between a house cat and a Black Footed Cat.  Or she could have just generally been a normal evil cat that all tabbies aspire to.

Writing

The latest (and last for a bit) installment of the Steve Adderson story is here

I've spent a lot of the morning chasing round a referral for bear, and after several different departments passed me on it turns out that his referral has been lost.  Fortunately it is nothing urgent.

Bear has broken a plate.  To be honest, stuff happens and it will make an extra slot as we are over supplied with side plates.

Bear is bored, bored, bored and close to being grounded.

I have bunged some bulbs in.  I got them extremely inexpensively from Approved Food and I am hoping that they don't rot but I won't be surprised if we don't get much results.  I had to use my gloved hands to get a hole for the bulbs as the door to the garden stuff, under the steps, is completely jammed.  I also got rained on.

Darn it to Heck

I dropped the iron.  Now it is extremely tepid.  Darn.  Mind you, it has lasted longer than most.  I am going to have to buy another.  On the bright side, I don't need much else and at least this time I'll easily make the £40 minimum.

Bear has a day off school tomorrow.  It's a teacher training day.  I know how much benefit the teachers get, but I am glad I am able to cover the day off.  The parents who both work must go frantic.  Bear is quite glad because the poor kid is shattered.  For the first time in probably years I had to wake him this morning.  This is unheard of.  I am hoping he sleeps in tomorrow.

We have plans for tomorrow.  We plan to do nothing.

Weird

I have a smartphone.  Actually, the combination of elderly, creaky, glitchy phone and not always clued up owner makes it a stupidphone sometimes, but I do my best.  For some reason it won't send emails for me, but I can read them.  I quite regularly dip in over the day to check what is going on.

Yesterday there was one on the list.  It said, 'No Sender' and 'this email has no content' and was dated September 1st 1970.  I tried to open it but it disappeared.  As someone who loves stories I had a rummage on the internet for anything that might have happened 1 September 1970, but nothing struck me.  I suppose it is just a glitch, but I love potential stories.

The weather continues to be ridiculous.  It feels like snow is in the air, though none has been forecast for round here.  My snow senses may be off, though, as I am very tired and my shoulders are really, really painful.  Both have been dislocated, the left one has been dislocated three times, and it feels like they have been knocked.  DH suggested that it may be the coughing I've done as the cough has been spectacularly dramatic (not serious).

More Shopping Dodged

Normally I get in some yarn for a project for over Christmas.  I have a dreadful record for actually finishing any of them.  Somewhere there is a tiny baby's jacket I started for bear back in 2007.  I think I did the back and the left front.

This year I considered what I should do.  I could look on eBay, I could look on Marriners Yarns or Deramores.

I decided that actually I have eleventy projects already waiting to go, so I'll stick with what I've got in.  Besides, I can't wait to get going with them.  It's just making time.  As I am spending a lot of time doing nothing atm I can't justify getting more when I haven't done the stuff I've got already.

Actually looking forward to snuggling down tonight with my knitting as it is dark and stormy outside.
I may be forced to do some actual shopping though as bear is getting too tall for his trousers.  I shall have a rummage and see what he has actually got in the back of his cupboards before I commit.

Unsurprised

I honestly was devastated on Friday when I saw the dreadful news from Paris.  I thought of all the people killed and their devastated and bewildered families.  I thought of the injured and the utter havoc this will cause and the effects they will carry for the rest of their lives.  I thought of those who were physically unharmed but now had to remember the sound of the explosions and the shots and the screams again and again.  I thought of how strong the police and the medics would have to be to gather the remains, some in a very bad way, and try and give some dignity to the dead.

It ripples out.  Concerts have been cancelled in Paris.  I suppose the bands and the venues will have insurance, but how about the cafes that will now have that many fewer patrons?  A few less bieres and croque monsieurs, a few less coffees.  It takes the bite out of the profits of a lot of smaller businesses.  How many people are going to Disneyland Paris now?  How many want to risk the trip on Eurostar?  Rationally it should be the safest time to visit Paris, but this isn't a time when logical thought sounds strongest.  Lives will be a little harder in a city that takes a lot of revenue from tourists and visitors and where times are already tough.

The ripples move out a little further.  Far too many people are looking at Muslims as if they are they enemy.  So Western Muslims who are devastated at the attacks, just the same as I am, now have lives that bit harder.  A beauty salon has banned all Muslims.  I wonder how many other places will follow suit, not publicising it, not shouting about it, just quietly turning away those who do not look Western European with a lame excuse.

Hundreds of people dead or injured.  Thousands of people left traumatised.  Who knows how many taking a financial hit.  And millions of people needlessly smirched because a terrorist group have been violent in the name of a religion that has nothing to do with the slaughter of innocents.

I am unsurprised at the news article about the beauty salon.  I am very saddened.