Weather. Etc.

 

OH HOW I HATE THIS WEATHER.  I keep trying to remind myself that it's only the middle 20s*—mild November weather when I lived in Maine—also quite common in February, as I think about it, as we rolled finally toward March and the great STINK of the spring melt.  But . . . the 20s in Maine in the winter is nice weather.  You aren't allowed to get cranky till it hits the teens.  And there will be a stretch when it gets down to zero.  Fahrenheit.  Eww.

            I loved Maine.  I'm glad I don't live there any more.

            I hate this weather.  We did not, after all, get more than a scant half inch of snow last night—just enough to make the long twisty drive to the main road from the far end of the mews terrace interesting, which then prompted me to square up before turning up my cul de sac at the other end, since chances were I wasn't going to be able to straighten out afterward.  We did kind of sail up the slope like a yacht or a dowager, but we arrived at the top which is all that matters.**  And I haven't fallen on any hellhounds today.  Nor am I wearing yaktrax.  So clearly it's not that bad.

            And it isn't.  Except that I'm not used to it any more.  And it's going on and on.  Like, you know, weather, instead of the odd freak day.   I was thinking about this today.  As my old Maine gear has worn out I've been replacing it with, you know, local garb.  Which is to say that my new winter jacket or raincoat isn't baggy enough to get two heavy sweaters and a goosedown vest under.  And picking up after the hellhounds is so much easier in fingerless gloves that I am reluctant to be driven back into proper full-length gloves.***  If the cold only lasts a day or two, eh, you get a little chilly and wait for it to go away.  I got rid of my furry hat with the ear flaps years ago†.  And I can't frelling find my heated gloves—the ones with the little square battery strapped to the back of each hand, which I used for driving the MGB in cold weather.  I have reminded myself that if I'm going to wear All Stars instead of hiking boots, to use the wool-lined leather insoles, and that the scarf I wrap around my ears has not only to be wool†† but it has to be large enough to protect my chin and throat as well.  Winter.  It's a skill.  Ugh. 

Catlady

"…suddenly it was snowing. Only in the parking lot. Not on the road. Not in the next parking lot over. Just this one."

EMoon

Precisely delivered snow sounds like some of our rain in Texas. I've been in hard rain, walked a few yards and been in the dry. Rains one side of a street and not the other. Rains in the neighbor's yard and not in ours (the reverse never happens.) . . . 

CathyR [who lives in the UK]

How bizarre … ! 

But this is exactly my experience of English weather.  I used to think it was hilarious the way people in British films would stand under a tree when it rained.  So it'll take another two minutes before you get wet?  And your point would be?  —Your point would be that it may very well stop raining within two minutes.  I am now totally someone who looks for a tree to stand under when it rains—from which vantage I stare at the cloud(s) and try and decide which way it's going and which way we††† might want to sprint to escape its dominion.  And at the old house it was regularly raining in the front/back garden when it was not raining on the other side of the house in the front/back garden.  Regularly.  Rainbows are so common around here that unless it's a really good one I don't even bother to stop—although I will look around to see where the local one is at the moment. 

KatydidNL

…the history teacher who turns into a manticore and eats the students that piss her off?

Oh glory. Please say this is really in the book.

I so want to read this. 

Oh.  Um.  Well, maybe we could have an outtake—?  I admit I found the prospect rather appealing myself . . . 

Mrs Redboots

is it a good thing to be able to write a persuasive modern, if alternative-world, seventeen-year-old—who goes to high school and lives with her parent(s)—when you're sixty?^

But you aren't 60 yet! Like me, you're not sixty until NEXT YEAR, and that is still a VERY LONG WAY AWAY. Isn't it? Yes it is…. it has to be! (I still have one more birthday to go, but alas, I can't deny that I will be 60 next year. This is not good. . . . ) 

Er.  No.  Wrong.  You may have a whole additional year left in which to gather ye rosebuds.  I am sixty this year.  I'm already 59.  I'll be SIXTY next November.  SIXTY.§  But I was climbing out of Maggie's skin again tonight and reacquainting myself with the embarrassments of increasing age and . . . I know I keep saying this, and there are probably those of you out there muttering 'the [old] lady doth protest too much' but . . . it sure beats being young.§§  

* * *

* Fahrenheit.  So about minus 4 C. 

** We arrived and got into our parking space, which is all that matters. 

***  And I had forgotten that a pair of (even lined) leather gloves that fit are nimble enough to deal with hellhound effluvia and plastic bags under most conditions.  Yaaay.  I may not have terminal chilblains^ by the end of the week. 

^ Note that before I moved to England I thought chilblains were a myth out of Dickens and Victorian gothic.  Then I started getting them.+ 

+ http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/chilblains/Pages/Introduction.aspx  Yes.  I have terrible circulation.  And yes, Maine cold is much drier than southern England cold. 

† I got rid of my goosedown vest too, but then I bought a new one.  On sale.  Because no one wants them in southern England. 

†† Which provides an additional reason to hurtle briskly because I need to get home before I come out in hives.  If wool-weather goes on too many days I insinuate a fleece hood between the scarf and me.  But that's another of these taking it seriously things, which I keep resisting. 

††† If I'm out in the rain near a tree, I have hellhounds with me. 

Mrs Redboots

And male dogs do pee every yard or so, not to relieve their bladders but for scent-marking purposes. A great nuisance…. 

Tell me about it.^  All dogs mark to a greater or lesser extent, in my experience, but my experience has been mostly neutered girls, and the last entire male^^ I had much to do with lived on a farm, and long, mostly on-lead walks were not necessary.  The thing that I find both very funny and VERY FRUSTRATING, ESPECIALLY WHEN WE'RE TRYING TO GO TO BED, is how long it takes them—Darkness in particular—to empty his bladder.  He stands there with a vague, far-off look on his face, going squirt.  Squirt.  Squirt.  Squirt.  Squirt.  I actually thought there might be something wrong, but the vet said blandly, oh no, some of them are just like this.  

^  Ooh!  Grass!  Ooh!  Tree!  Ooh!  Dustbin!  Ooh!  Wall!  Ooh!  Another tree!  Ooh!  More grass!  Ooh!  Rock!  Ooh!  Corner of something!  Ooh!  Bollard!  Ooh!  Corner of something else!  Ooh!  Fence!  Ooh!  Particular bit of hedgerow!  Ooh!  Another particular bit of hedgerow!  Ooh!  Signpost!  Ooh!  Gate!  Ooh!  Stile!  Ooh!  Bank of stream!  Ooh!  Hillside!  Ooh!  Shrubbery!  Ooh!  Large ancient rusty piece of something that has been sitting there for years and is a message board for miles of local dogs!  

^^ DOG 

§ But they've been playing silly buggers with the concept of pensionable age, and I'm not eligible for my free bus pass till I'm 62 years, seven months and twenty days old.  Feh. 

§§ After all, you might end up in that class where if you piss the teacher off she might morph into a manticore and eat you.