Viva Yaktrax

 

Snow.  There is snow.

Snow.

It was so warm last night—several degrees above freezing and it hadn’t started snowing yet—I didn’t think it was going to.  I thought it would just rain some more.  Hey, we haven’t had to ford anything in several days, it’s clearly time for more rain.

Snow EVERYWHERE.

Except it snowed.  It’s good snow—fluffy but it packs well:  hellhounds and I went the long way around a couple of times so as not to get caught up in any snowball scrimmages—but it’s still snow.  When I woke up this morning it was coming down in great fat golfballs.  Unnh, I said, and went back to sleep.  Later, after wrestling a few falls with the hellterror WHO CERTAINLY DOESN’T WANT TO CRAP IN THIS ALIEN LANDSCAPE, I caught my neighbour, the military bloke whose last away assignment was being seconded to a remote bit of Afghanistan, shovelling out the driveway so he could get into it and I said, How are the roads?  He stopped shovelling, straightened up, looked me directly in the eye the way a Commander of Forces should and said, Unpleasant.  Ah, the scintillant beauty of British understatement.  Another reason to live in this country.*

Hellterror, hiding under her cafe chair again. Make it go AWAAAAAAAAAAAY.

IT TOOK ME TWO TRIPS TO TRAMP TWO HELLHOUNDS AND A HELLTERROR TO THE MEWS.  AND IT’S GOING TO TAKE ME ANOTHER TWO TRIPS TO GET THEM ALL HOME AGAIN.**  Whose bright idea was this living in two*** houses anyway?†  ARRRRRRGH.  If this weather continues—which it’s supposed to—I will experiment in daylight with a troika, but I’m not going to start tonight.  The reason I haven’t tried triple hurtling yet already is because I’m still hoping Darkness will get over himself a little more.  At the moment he still barks manically when the hellterror is loose and, I acknowledge, behaving like a hellterror.  I can usually manage to shut him up when we’re indoors since he has developed some faith that I will prevent her from Assaulting Him in His Bed, or at least that I will remove her with alacrity.  But I can imagine what our first attempt at a trichotomous hurtle is going to be like.  Peter’s neighbours already don’t like me because of the late hours I keep . . . and I don’t think neighbourly relations would be positively enhanced if Darkness went into Frenzied Barking Mode under their window at mmph o’clock in the morning.

I even know there’s a coal tit on the birdfeeder and I still can’t see him. At one point I had three or four coal tits on the seed feeder and simultaneously another three or four on the suet feeder. I didn’t get a photo of that of course.

And because two slogs from one end of town to another aren’t enough, and because I feel a trifle guilty about the hellhounds, who are used to more and better . . . we schlepped back to the cottage an extra time so I could go to New Arcadia tower practise.  Well, our Friday handbell third cancelled, not surprisingly, since she doesn’t live here, and I was all loose-ends and Whatever Will I Do With Myself?, and I asked Niall if they were having tower practise tonight.  Yes, said Niall, Vicky and I are hoping that people who live close by will come.

Ahem.

There were exactly six of us—exactly the six that live walking distance from the tower.  And it was fun.  There was a slight we-few-we-happy-few-we-band-of-siblings feel about it, braving the elements and all—Fustian cancelled their Friday practise and the abbey has cancelled Sunday afternoon service ring already—and while there’s quite a bit you can ring on five, I was amused that just about everything Niall called required that the sixth person present was a proper method ringer.

I had a few words with Niall as we were leaving.  Good practise, said Niall.  Yes, I said, and useful too.  I can’t remember the last time I’ve rung a touch of Grandsire doubles.  And anything I don’t use I lose.

Come on Sunday, said Niall.  We ring a lot of Grandsire doubles on Sunday morning.

If the puppy craps in time, I said, I will.

* * *

* Except when it comes under the category of ‘home—drives you crazy’.

** Viva Yaktrax.  http://www.yaktrax.co.uk/

*** or three

† Mine.  I’ve told you this story.  When we were moving out of the big house in the country and looking for a little house in town I knew Peter and I would drive each other round the twist in a little house.  Okay, Peter would drive me round the twist.  I’d been hoping for a house with an annexe or a granny flat, whither I could retire to fulminate and pile things in heaps my way, but Peter really wanted New Arcadia and so do a lot of other people and we couldn’t find anything here in our price range.  I still have I-wonder-what-if thoughts about houses we looked at in Mauncester.