Late winter

Well we have survived the lovely snowy weather, its all gone now and we are starting to get summery weather, cold with rain. This will make my ride into work a little more pleasant. Robyn and Martin went off to Belgium for the Valentine's weekend, and we haven't seen Catriona since Friday, perhaps she has run away from home. Liz has the week of and several tins of paint have arrived in the kitchen, ohh dear. I think she wants to paint the kitchen red or something, because there does seem to be an awful lot of red paint, such an agressive colour, blue would be better, but that is a bit cold for this weather. Liz finished the kitchen and has started baking again, carrot cakes etc, the electricity bill wasn't too bad, she is quite struck by Robyn's boyfriend, Martin, and even bakes cakes for him! (only little ones though) Well some time has passed since I started writing this little bit. I have cracked open a small bottle of French lager, apologies to the German audience! Liz has finished painting the kitchen. We now have one red wall and the rest is magnolia or something, off white really.
We have cut down two trees in the back garden and, having done that, I am now busy cutting them up for firewood. This is taking a while as it has been a little chilly out of late. The weather now appears to be warming. We have been to a few auctions recently and have added more to the house contents, Liz has a few red bits of kitchenware to go with the new look red kitchen, a red colander and a red coffee pot. We have now started to have a couple of braais and we even found a few lamb burgers in the freezer from the wedding and some boerewors. We had a few friends around for a braai last night and cracked open a nice little bottle of pinotage, that went down really well. I braaied the wors etc and we even had a wood fire going in the brazier that Liz bought a couple of years ago, but it was still a bit too chilly to sit outside and eat, but hopefully this will change soon. We should soon be able to engage in outside activities. My morning rides, to work, are now in early morning light and I even saw a muntjac, an animal not unlike a duiker, and hare one morning, they looked a bit dazed by the sight of a fat-ish human on a bicycle riding by, but they should soon get used to it. There are now motorbikes starting to zoom around the place so spring is on the way. I must go and get another beer, that last one was quite good, a Dutch lager would be better, but alas there are none on the premisses, no biltong either, only salted peanuts. Ah that's better, the beer seems a bit warm though, still cooler than any beers left in the Shashi river ever were, it looks as though I am going to have to turn on the fridge again soon! The fish in the pond have started to get restless to and are starting to feed off the algae, we will have to start feeding them soon, we did lose one during the winter.

Weather report

Well, as you may or may not know, there has been a lot of snow around. Our snow arrived last Thursday in the early hours and Liz made me ride my new push bike to 'school' in it. I managed about fifty yards through this village and then walked the remaining, nearly, two miles and rode the last one hundred metres. It is a good job bike lights are not dynamo driven any more, otherwise it would have been in the dark! It was a whiteout at work, very christmas card like. There were some cowboys practicing 4 wheel drifting in the car park, they didn't hit anyone, but could have, it is no wonder we have all these safety regulations here. People around here couldn't get to work, so they came to the Co-op instead, to play, the car park was full through to the weekend, so the shop must have felt like it was Christmas all over again. The garage was fairly quiet and I had to do a double shift, so I was able to 'beg' a lift home from Liz, I even had to drive, talk about a slave driver. Friday was also snowy, but I had the car, so not so bad although it did come teaming down at home time. The carwash was out of commision, as you can see. Peterborough was very icy on Saturday and relatively quiet when we went in, there was plenty of parking as the car parks were thick with frozen snow, I didn't see any yellow snow however, for those who are interested. There was even a city council truck gritting the pedestrian areas.

Philip and Amy christened our grandson on Sunday, Harry Michael is now an official catholic. They arrived at the church on time, even the priest was surprised, so we were able to get on and I did not have to spend too long in that uncomfortable environment, my eyebrows started to curl and there were scorch marks on my coat afterwards. There was a celebration at the Ramsey Mereside village hall, but no booze, more regulations. Louise and Matt were also there and the priest even joined our table at the christening, he had to as Liz is the church organist. I had to talk to him, but we kept the discussion down to steam trains, there was a new one completed this week up north and it came through Peterborough on Saturday(phew!). I gather he also likes riding a motorcycle in the good weather, he is about seventy and has a pace maker, so there is still hope for some of our older motorcycling friends, you know who you are! We finished and came home at 3pm, in time to watch the Six Nations match between Wales and Scotland, Wales won, but only just. I bet all you folks in Africa must be sick with envy of our weaher. The black cat is not too impressed as she doesn't like her nethers being chilly when she takes a loo break, but the fluffy cat couldn't give a cat's arse, or something, she loves it, as it brings the birds closer to the house, meals on wings. The black cat has just come in, she is damp, it must be raining, she is sitting on my papers, shoulders hunched and glowereing, just to make sure I know how unhappy she is with the weather, what a neurotic cat! That will have to do, we have Valentine's day coming up on Saturday with a dance at the village hall and also an auction in Oundle on Saturday morning, wow what a busy weekend we are going to have!