How my mind works

Our fourth day of being snowed in.  Well, I think that today, we could probably get out and go somewhere, but we don’t need to do that, so we won’t.  My hero is out clearing the snow from the lane, so that if/when it snows again, it won’t simply sit on the old, icy stuff.

A few vehicles have been up and down but not enough to spread the grit and salt, so far.  We haven’t seen the postman since last week, either, but maybe we’ll see him today.  I wonder if he’ll be wearing his shorts?!

Being at home was a good opportunity to get ahead of myself – Lesley, I didn’t take up your suggestion of tackling a UFO! – and I’ve been thinking about putting together the bones of my next travel journal.  Now that I’m doing really well at keeping up with the ephemera-in-pockets-style of my daily journalling, I don’t really want to stop that whilst we’re away.  However, taking photos, sketching, blogging, scribbling and everything else all takes time – and I do want to leave some time for actually having fun!  It all has to fit in the routine and be as simple as possible, or I know, I won’t do it.

I’ve written before about my different travel journal styles and since our next jaunt will be a cruise, I know it will be hard to find time to complete a traditional, fully featured journal like I’d do on a road trip.  I thought about working MaryAnn-style and having just taken her inspiring Ticket To Venice class, was tempted to use some of the ideas she shared.  But I know that on this trip, only the quick and easy is going to work, and that on most days, stuffing a few bits of ephemera into a pocket is as far as I’m going to get.

But hang on…wasn’t one of my challenges about how I was going to maintain progress on my putting-ephemera-in-pockets project?

I know, you probably got there way before me.

I need pockets!  To put things in!

Then I saw this.  With a day at home to think about it (not time to wait for any tutorial) I decided to work on a prototype.  Come back later and see how it went.

Zero. Or thereabouts.

As we look out on the white world outside, we’re thinking of our dear friends down under who are enduring scorching temperatures.  We’ve lobbed quite a few virtual snowballs in their direction over the last couple of days but I expect they melted by the time they got there.

I decided it was time to crack open another of our yummy Tasmanian Christmas goodies this afternoon.  After all, there has to be some consolation at not being able to go very far, hasn’t there?

Gold Medal Flavours, eh?  Only the best!!

Sounds good, eh?

I carefully divided the pieces for my Hero and I and took the photograph.

Because it didn’t last long.

Delicious!   Thank you, John x

I know.

I said we weren’t going anywhere.  But that was before my hero remembered that he’d promised to walk around our friends’ house, since they’re away for the weekend.  So, we put on boots and coats and hats and gloves and scarves and set out across the field.

It was really rather beautiful.  The snow had drifted in such a way that we could be walking in just a centimetre or so one minute and then up to our knees the next.

Someone had made the sweetest pair of snowpeople.  But the rose, so lovingly offered, wasn’t being gracefully accepted, it appeared.

In places, where the snow had blown across a hard surface, there was a kind of “ice shelf” and this one looked like a pair of claws.  Oooh, scary!

Our friends’ drive is a little tricky and in places, there are 40 – 50cm deep drifts.  We trod very carefully and our footprints around the house made it look as though someone had been on a heffalump hunt (or was it a woozle?)

I’m glad to say, that by the time we made it back across the field, the snowpeople had made up!

Sweet?

It’s here

It started early.  I was supposed to be at work this morning, together with colleagues for a long-standing and rather important meeting, so I got up early and poked my nose through the curtains.  By the time my colleagues and I had had a bit of email conversation and compared notes, it was clear, none of us were going anywhere.

Of course, it was widely forecast yesterday.  Our plans for driving up to Yorkshire this weekend were cancelled yesterday morning, because most of the students whose work I was due to assess on Monday were already snowed/iced in themselves and there didn’t seem much point in making heroic efforts when we can simply rearrange.  However, not expecting to be home all weekend meant we hadn’t really done much shopping.  So I went to Waitrose, where it was like Christmas all over again!

It was a good job I did, for we are not going anywhere for a while.  Not a single vehicle has passed the house and although my hero has been out and done what he can to clear and grit the steep bend which usually offers the biggest challenge, the wind has blown the snow over it again.

The combination of fine snow and strong wind is making lovely shapes and textures though.

However, I am not venturing any further than the doorstep to look for them!

It was actually pretty dreary all morning, with fine, wet snow blowing all over the place, but towards lunchtime it brightened enough to bring out a few folks and their sledges to the field across the valley.

But it’s really cold, with temperatures below zero and a strong wind chill too.  I don’t think we’re going to go anywhere for a couple of days!

One of the things I’ve discovered and have enjoyed using over the last couple of weeks is the Day One app on my iphone.  It’s perfect for recording a snapshot right now, automatically tags it with the date and time and will include weather and location information at a tap of the screen.  There’s space for some journalling, if the mood takes me, or the picture will simply fill the screen if there’s nothing to say.  What’s more, the next time there’s a wifi connection, it uploads all of that to Dropbox without my having to lift another finger.

Highly recommended.

Wednesday

Shortly after I published my previous blog post, we decided to use the gift vouchers given to us at Christmas to go and see Les Miserables.  Living the high life, as we do, we went to the 1.40pm showing at the Stroud Apollo, together with about twenty other people.  The foyer of the cinema was actually fairly bustling and we expected to find ourselves in a full auditorium, but as we were directed to Screen 3, the majority of the crowd shuffled in a different direction, to see “Quartet”.

As can be seen on my journal entry above, I gave it three stars.  I don’t think Russell Crowe is going to make it in musical theatre as a result of this performance, so no surprises there.  But he wasn’t as bad as some reviewers have suggested, I thought, and I was actually a  little disappointed in Hugh Jackman, if I’m honest.  No doubt, however, that the stand out performance was from Anne Hathaway (whose teeth I had to google about later…)  though I thought all the principal women did remarkably well and in my opinion, Eddie Redmayne made a great Marius.

My main observation is that big isn’t always better.  That a cast of thousands can’t necessarily evoke the same emotions as a small scale theatre show and that epic scenes, whilst impressive from a production point of view are not always as dramatic as low(er) budget interpretations.  It confirmed my opinion that it’s impossible to beat a great live performance.

Oh, and that little moment with Javert, Gavroche and the medal provoked the same reaction in both of us.

Cheap shot.

(this sums it up well, I think)

Update on Thursday, January 17, 2013 at 3:27PM by Gill Thomas

Having read a report and then listened to a radio feature this lunchtime about audience reaction in cinemas, I can report that in the Stroud Apollo yesterday afternoon, there was no applause whatsoever, and apart from the rustling of sweet papers in the row behind me and a single audible gasp at some critical moment or other, no audience reaction at all.  Heartless, that's what we are down here.