my private narnia

If you leave rashbre central and turn left, then right, then right, then right, walk to the 'no turning back' sign and then turn right again, you come to the area in these pictures.

I sometimes cycle around here, but today wandered along to see the difference that the snow has made. It is always pretty when the area has been dusted white and the first thing I spotted was a wren flittering along beside me.
Then a few deer tracks and the flash of a deer's tail in the distance. The deer are crafty around here and I suspect many people don't even know of their existence.

There were several on what amounts to an island amongst a few small ponds and streams. Luckily I knew about the very flat differently coloured snow and didn't try walking on the water.

Onward to find the wild ponies, who were in a clearing, grazing in the sunshine surrounded by snow that reached over the top of my boots.

It may not be Narnia, but it's also not bad for a ten minute walk from home.

i must be slipping

a kind of liberation

It took me half an hour to liberate my car today. The frozen snow was about 20 cm all over it. I ran the engine, whacked the heater onto maximum and started scraping.

Then I dug out the wheels. A diagnostic message said something about take the car to the workshop to have the brakes checked. I suppose the ice has got inside the sensors.

Then I reversed it onto the road I'd dug yesterday. Slightly down hill, enough for the little yellow triangle stability signal to flash intermittently. Gingerly down the slope to the next level of road, which had become noticeably more slippery than yesterday. I needed to drive about another 300 metres to get to a bigger gritted and salted road.

I hadn't bargained on the sheer number of walkers who were splayed around the whole expanse ahead of me. More than when I'd been out yesterday or Wednesday. I suspect cabin fever had finally forced people to the streets. So instead of making my progress at a sedate 2-3 mph, I had to stop.

I knew this would be a bad thing.

The car got stuck. Luckily I'd brought a shovel so I could dig out the snow that had immediately formed around the front of the rear wheels. I moved the build up of ice and then three neighbours gave me a lengthy shove to get moving again.

End of the road. Glass surface but no traffic at the T junction so I could turn without stopping into the main road where I found proper grip. I've decided to leave the car on a main road now. The backpack, woolly hat, gloves and ski jacket came in useful for my walk back home.

As I passed the spot where I'd got stuck, I noticed another car parked there. It's wheels had sunk to around the level of the axles.

Here's Tori Amos fabulously singing about Winter. And fathers. And daughters.
Snow can wait, I forgot my mittens, Wipe my nose, get my new boots on.

Radox moment

It was all very neighbourly today.

I had a bunch of phone call meetings from early morning until early afternoon and then as the sun arrived I decided to clear some of the snow.

Our part of the road is on a gentle slope almost unnoticeable in normal conditions, although the incident with the wall and a neighbour's car and the stranding of my own vehicle last year illustrates that there is lurking treachery.

Twenty five centimetres / nine inches of snow doesn't sound all that much until you start to shovel it away. Between myself and another neighbour we set about regaining vehicular access. Malcolm and I worked on our own sections until I had to go for another conference call (that ol' excuse!). He continued and made a neat line at the point when he also had to do something else.

I started again and had a clear run. It looked an immense distance from the house to the adjacent very minor road. I shovelled for hours and the snow was at least a metre high along the edge of the pavement where I'd been working. My garden shovel was nowhere near as fancy as other neighbours with some kind of proper Canadian snow shovel.

With the sunshine and common purpose, it was all quite chatty. Others were backpacking to the shops and we compared notes about the local snowmen and igloos. I'm sure other countries more used to snow would smirk at this type of activity, compared with having a motorised mini snowplough drive along pavements and roads to clear everything. Remember even Gatwick Airport was snowplough challenged. When I talked to my Norwegian friend during one of the conference calls, he commented that it was quite tough at the moment around minus 30 Centigrade.

Between the neighbours we've even found some grippy stuff. The neighbour's cat litter worked surprisingly well. Later another neighbour passed, marvelling at my roadbuilding handiwork and offering salt pellets. At this rate we will have a serviceable road again by tomorrow, although I have slight misgivings that it might be 'one way'.

Time for a long soak in a bath.

milpitas

Strange twitter trend this evening.

Not Ross disappearing from our schedules, not Brown's latest revolt, not even #uksnow. No.

Milpitas.

They've had an earthquake.

4.2.

I stayed there once, with friend Steve, by accident. All I can remember is a quite dangerous gas station. We moved on to San Francisco and stayed in suites in the Marriott before the infamous 49ers episode. Another day.

milk run

Its always good to keep one's hand in at building igloos. Better to make individual ice bricks and then shape them.

When I headed out to buy some milk, I found the lack of people coupled with the mix of white and some of the already ash coloured snow was somehow reminiscent of the book I'd just read.

Near home the snow was around 30 cms deep and on adjacent paths it had packed down although the few footprints were easily delineated.
There were almost no cars. A few slow moving four wheel drives with mysterious lumps on them, reshaped by snow. And a tractor with a snow-plough.

When I arrived at Tesco's there was a mere smattering of cars in the large car park.

Yet Tesco's shelves were already relatively empty. All of the 'normal' milk types had gone yet I didn't fancy brandy flavoured cream. I don't know what the turnover must be, but one day without a truck delivery seemed to have left a pretty large hole. I found some one pint containers of semi-skimmed, which was all they had left.
I Then, with a backpack full of my shopping goodies, I took a different route home through the train station and then past housing where I could count snowmen.

There were plenty.

Tall ones, short ones, crooked ones, artistic ones, bodged together quickly ones.

As well as a few more igloos. And a couple of ice-sofas and dino-cars.

It looks as if they will all be around for a few more days.

quick fix sky reception after snow storm

There seem to be two methods, which are dish height dependent.

(1) lower dish. Hit it with a broomstick to dislodge ice and snow.
(2) higher dish. Throw a football at it to dislodge ice and snow.

I have used both methods successfully, although I expect they are frowned upon by Sky.

* I know the picture is of a barbecue. The Sky dish picture was a bit too blurry

herons

A recent walk back from a pub included a random conversation along the lines of did we ever see any herons around here? I said "Yes, every week or two". Actually, if I'm out cycling then there could be more frequent sightings.

Then today I saw four different ones.

Unless they were stalking me for circa 20 miles, then I'm pretty sure they were different birds. All flying and quite close by. It had me wondering what they knew, that meant an unexpected number of them breaking cover. This isn't Florida and they normally keep themselves to the more countryside areas.

Its like a couple of weeks ago when the local deer that usually hide in the woods became disorientated in the snow and started wandering around various neighbourhood gardens.

Of course, by this evening, there's a possible explanation that the herons could sense the impending weather and were doing something secretively heron-like in advance.

Anyway, its snowing around here at the moment. Quite a lot.

the road

Back to work today, with lots of people in the office, restocking with pencils and other useful stationery. I arrived early, to bag a good hot-desk and then join in a few meetings as we get 2010 on the road.

Actually, I'm reading a book called 'The Road' at the moment, by Cormac McCarthy. Its a dystopian story of a father and son looking for somewhere to go in a post apocalyptic world, where everything is covered in grey ash flakes that have killed the ecosphere. Maybe they should have handed out some copies in Copenhagen last month.

Truth is, its quite a tough read. Not the writing, which streams along, but the subject matter, which includes ideas that once you've read them, can't be uninvented. I won't say more, but there's a relentless end of the world theme. Despite the faith and hope imbued in the principle characters, I can't imagine how this is going to turn out well.

It's a quick read, with some fast simple conversations to power it along. I also noticed its just been made into a movie although I think it will be difficult to capture the same sentiments on film.

I only started it Sunday, but I'll finish it tonight. Gripping.

division of labour

Almost back to normal stuff today. We've still got some snow on the ground here at the moment, but I've enough household chores to keep me away from the ice.

There's packing away various seasonal entertainments, repairing a few minor domestic damages and broken light bulbs. Determining whether any of the extra festive cheeses have gone critical. Arranging sundry empty wine bottles to not look too copious when the collectors arrive to take them away. Wondering how so many clothes have entered the laundry basket. Finding a new place to hang the Swiss triclimate fusion jackets. Trying to invent a meal from the spectacularly unusual remnants of the food in the fridge. Emptying excess chains, folding spades and telescopic sticks from the boot of the car. Re-assembling a collection of work equipment for tomorrow. Stacking a few new books on the reading pile.

The sun is shining. Maybe I will go out instead.

nine

At the best cinema in London this evening - The Electric in Portobello Road - to see Rob Marshall's 'Nine'. We'd booked armchairs with footstools and grabbed some suitably Italian drinks before the show started. It's the movie musical that parallels Fellini's 8 1/2 about the trials and tribulations of a director with writer's block attempting the ninth movie.

Stylishly 60's Italian, with little Alfa sports cars, perpetual sun-glasses and glamour the Sartorialist would envy, this was a cinema spectacle. I didn't know what I was getting in advance, and about a third of the way through realised it was a series of cameos by the women connected with Daniel Day-Lewis as the enigmatic and conflicted maestro Guido. At around the same moment I decided it wasn't so much a musical as a modern-day opera. Art house opera marketed as big screen musical, maybe?

All new songs (I think) and flashily sassily directed choreography which sometimes tips more than a wink to Bob Fosse. My sense was that the songs need to be heard a couple of times to really sink in, maybe because they are new rather than Moulin Rouge or Mamma Mia style implants of existing pop.

I'll be one of the people who enjoyed this show, although my sense is it will be divided. I liked the homage to 60's cinema, the graininess of some of the film, the wide open lenses with liquid backgrounds. The way that Daniel Day-Lewis played the director without a script or any ideas, but who could function charmingly on auto-pilot through the press calls.

There's a roll call of well-known actresses as the women in his life, from Marion Cotillard as his wife, Penelope Cruz his mistress, Nicole Kidman as his muse, Sophia Loren as his mother, through Fergie, Kate Hudson and even Judy Dench as the wardrobe person.

This may have been a simple storyline, modest dialogue and some flashy set pieces. I'd put it closer to art house homage than the way it seems to have been marketed. On that level I think it works well.

Trailer here

iSlate

We received some secret samples of the still in development handheld graphically enabled PDA with built in memory, text and reader support. They appeared from within innovative packaging akin to tinsel covered crackers. Along with a supply of apples and peppermints, we took them for a test run today.

There were a few teething troubles, mainly because of the ability to fold the device, and then to find new lines appearing in the text.

This would be okay for a mystery novel, but less so for a more factual account. It may rekindle writing ideas for some, but we wondered if a more permanent form of memory might be better, perhaps supplied in larger quantities. We hear the code name for these under development memory units is 'Pages'.