Boreas

Bitter cold and bright.  My fate was to go and shiver at bus stops, singing my winter Dowland dump:

I stand, I wait, I freeze,  I faint, I die
For Dudley bus, in endless misery.

Why in the name of Boreas would I do that?  Because my eminent, elderly, and much-in-demand eye doctor came in on a bitter Saturday to make up all the appointments he'd had to cancel on Thursday.  He didn't want to put us at the end of the queue again.  What a pearl!

My Arctic gear was much the same for the blizzard, amped up with a knit turtleneck instead of one of the shirts and an even heavier velveteen skirt.  Since it wasn't wet out, I wore a long wool coat with a fake fur collar turned up like Maleficent's round my ears.  I was awfully tempted to wear my inherited real fur coat (beaver), but wimped out.  So unCantabrigian.  The only chink in my armor is that I lost one of my gloves, right at the start of my journey, and had to keep putting alternate hands in a pocket.  Other than that, I was pretty toasty.  Even at 3ºF minus windchill.

Fortunately, I don't need new glasses, hurrah!  Slab-off prisms for anisometropia are awfully dear.  My discordant eyes, said the doctor, are like a ten-person orchestra without a conductor.

Coming back some hours later (I stopped for Suan La Chow Show at Mary's), I spotted my glove in a snow drift, not far from my front door.

Nine