Baby it's cold outside....

I was just sitting here trying to warm up my hands and thought - this is silly! I'm wearing gloves, have a jumper on, am wearing my uggs and am snuggled under multiple blankets - why am I still cold? I put the heater on and then had a look at the weather forcast just in case...

This would be why:
The little x's on the clouds for this evening? That means sleet and / or expected snow. Nice.

In other news, I've managed to reach the 40k mark in Nanowrimo. This year has been a slog uphill all the way. Not so easy the fourth time around. Keep your fingers crossed I'll make it to the finish line! :s

Summer is officially over...

It is now getting dark before 8 pm and I've been wearing a light jumper for the past couple of days.

I have to admit though, summer here was pretty impressive. The first 'real' summer I've had in the UK. I was in T-shirts most of the time and even got my sandals and thongs out for part of it. Sun and more sun and even some heat.

So yes, it's getting cold and getting dark rather more quickly than I'm used to, but at least it was light and warm for a period of time. Remind me of that when it gets miserable, won't you?

Backblog: The better part of valour is discretion.

From Shakespeare; Henry IV, Part One, spoken by Falstaff.

On the 6th of January I wrote this:

SNOW!!!

I at first thought this morning that I would walk to work. It had been snowing pretty much all night and was continuing to do so plentifully.

It took me just the six steps from my front door to the footpath to decide otherwise. It was manageable but probably would have taken me twice as long to do and a 90 minute walk is not something I wanted to do. I caught the bus instead

This is my front gate:


This my front door:


And this is a tree on the way down into town:


Weeeheeeheee!

This was my backyard three days later:


SNOW!!!

Plymothian Snow

It snowed this morning as I was walking to work. It snowed until about 9am, coating everything in a white brilliance... and then it rained. And unhappily, it didn't stop raining for long enough to dry out so now walking has become rather frighteningly interesting, and everyone is waddling. I almost fell over several times on the way home. A stiff-legged sliding gait is the order of the day. Very weird.

But back to the morning snow. It was amazing, not very heavy and it only managed to create a light coating before being rained on, but it was snow!

And I saw something I'd never seen before: Diamond snow!

You know snow is white of course - the frozen water reflects all light. Sometimes fluffy (this I have yet to see) and sometimes hard, it kind of floats down to the ground, slower than rain, and makes a shushing sound. Well it's ice of course, and in the right light, it sparkles. This morning walking along, when the car headlights caught it just right, it really looked like I was walking through a shower of silver glitter or a rain of tiny diamonds. It was extraordinarily beautiful.

Unfortunately, it was also Bloody Cold! I have just gone and bought myself enough thermal underwear to last the week out and a second hat, one with ear-flaps. Brrrr!

Great Weather for Ducks

That's what the lady in the pub I passed this evening said to me anyway.

This morning I had my first Plymouth frost of the all-cars-are-now-white-cars kind. A glorious red sunrise on the way into work didn't actually make me feel any better as it made me realise that I actually start my walk to work 20 minutes BEFORE dawn... :S

And then this evening it rained. It doesn't take a very heavy rain to soak me if it's persistent rain, and this was rain was bloody minded. My thought-to-be-waterproof-shoes, were not, and I had to wring my socks out when I got home. I now have the lovely bath-wrinkled-toe look. :) It's not yet sleeting though, so a little saturation I don't mind so much. The cold utterly sucks, but the wet is bearable. I'm not looking forward to the snow though. That'll be here sometime. Ich Ach Och.

Happiness is a patch of blue sky.

I'm finding living here a lot easier to deal with than London - even though I get wet regularly, there are patches of sunshine almost every day, and blue bits of sky poke through every so often. The world is a lot easier to deal with if you can see a bit of blue sky. There is very little smog and not too much traffic. There is no Tube! There are fewer muppets and friendlier shop assistants on the whole. Ok, so there aren't the musicals and theatricals and shopping variety that there is in london, but there aren't the crowds and there is virtually no traffic noise either and I live in the city! Much pleasanter.

I'm lying in a spot of sunshine right now in fact. Happiness is a lovely day. Yay for the country!

Rising Damp

It's raining here at the moment. In fact it's been raining a lot lately. I got to Choir practice this evening, and my legs from the knee down were a much darker colour than my trousers above the knee. As I was scooching past one of the older ladies to get to a free seat, she commented "Ah, I see we have rising damp this evening."

I was dripping! :)

These Plymothians crack me up.

My Hero: Placky Dacks

It's a tad wet here at the 'mo. Having no wish to repeat the performance of saturation that got me my current cold, I went to Gould's on the weekend (army store) and got myself some plastic rain-proof trousers. I was very happy indeed with this purchase as it poured on me this morning. They worked wonders. In fact my bottoms were dryer than my top was when I got into work.

Unfortunately, I made the fatal error of calling them 'Plastic Pants' in front of my co-workers. In the UK, plastic pants are what babies wear to stop you-know-what from leaking. Here, they're outer-trousers or waterproof trousers (which is sensible I guess if you're into sensible!). I caused hilarity and a repeat of my error to every other staff member that happened to walk past. *sigh*

Well at least I was dry. I may look like a burke, but I'm a DRY burke!

Freezing Kneecaps

The water sheeted down yesterday. And whilst I was relatively dry due to my purchase of a knee-length raincoat (which is so thoroughly saturated, it's still wet 24hrs later!), my knees got a good soaking. And with a freezing wind whipping around me at 50km/hr that meant bloodly cold knee caps and soaked trousers. I changed my trousers when I got home to find my knees were red raw. It is COLD people!

Slimy...

I always thought Autumn was beautiful; the cooling drop in temperatures after a scorching summer, the amazing array of colours, the lovely smell of fallen leaves, the crispness of an Autumn morning. I walk to and from work so I have been able to see the leaves turn and have been reveling in all the splendor of the changing season... But no longer.

Fact: Millions of leaves on the ground + days of rain/sea mist = wet leaves decomposing and turning into slime.

Wet decomposing leaves on footpaths leads to footpaths coated in slime.

Footpaths coated in slime leads to Kat having extreme difficulty remaining upright.

Ouch. :S

What The...?? Hang On!

Friday was the first day this year I'd been able to walk around comfortably in just a T-shirt. It was a lovely sunny day of about 18 Celsius. It would have been lovely to have spent the day in a park somewhere if I hadn't had to work.

Today... it is snowing. Snowing! I've had to bring out the winter hat, gloves and coat again, and it's bloody freezing! It's supposed to be Spring... you know, mild weather, bouncing lambs and flowers appearing. Instead, we have a covering of white stuff.

Mind you, it is pretty!

The Easter Bunny brought Snow!

Well, it was sort of snow.

Actually the weather couldn't seem to decide whether it wanted to be snowing or raining. Or indeed sleeting, although I have no idea how on earth they tell the difference between sleet and hail 'cause it looks the same to me.

Sleet is, according to the interweb, formed from frozen rain or re-frozen snow, so will not be as symmetrical as hail, whereas hail is formed in the clouds themselves and get its circular appearance from being tossed about up there. Also, sleet will bounce… but then I thought hail did too. It was quite a bit gentler than hail usually is. Walking outside – for some insane reason I wanted to be out in it – it didn’t hurt to get sleeted on. But it still looked like hail to me.

Rain here, well most of the time it isn't rain really, not as we know it in any rate. Rather than giving you a good drenching, it just gets you half-heartedly damp. For example I walked home the other day in London's version of rain; I was wearing sneakers that were most definitely not waterproof, but it took the entire walk - a walk of about 40 minutes - for my feet to feel like they were just possibly approaching a state of dampness. And the rain that wasn’t snow was London’s version of rain, so I didn’t get wet, just sort of dottedly damp.

It was fun to watch the big snowflakes swirling about though, and some of them were a lot bigger than I thought snow would be. It got really enthusiastic at times too, doing a real snowstorm impersonation, but for most of the weekend, it just sort of undecidedly mooched between snow, sleet and rain. Kinda miserable really, but lovely to be on the other side of the glass from.

Baby, It's Cold Outside!

Winter has finally really hit. It’s been minus three overnight for the past couple of days and this morning I woke up to white rooftops and ice on the windows. And on the ground – walking to the bus stop this morning was positively hazardous! There was a coating of ice on all the paths and it was damn slippery. I almost wished I had crampons on my sneakers, just so I wouldn’t end up on my back side.

I am actually enduring the conditions here quite well. London has the weather of Melbourne combined with the temperatures of Canberra, both cities which I have successfully survived. Admittedly this means that London is both very wet and very cold, but at least it is nowhere near the snow-fields so the wind chill factor of minus 30 that you get in Canberra is thankfully absent.

It is still bloody cold!

Temperature Management Failure

I cannot seem to get the hang of the cold weather here. Strange comment, I know, especially from someone who has survived five winters in Canberra spent largely outdoors thanks to a (now defunct) smoking habit. I don’t mean that I can’t handle the cold, that’s not the problem, what I mean is that I can’t seem to be able to judge the appropriate layers of clothing to wear to suit the conditions. I’m either boiling hot or bloody freezing and no-where in between. My jackets are either too warm or too cold, or I wear too many layers or not enough… can someone please explain to me the exact combination of clothing I need to make at each degree of Celsius to actually be comfortable?? Because I am failing entirely to manage this London weather thing. In Canberra it was fine – when it was cold, it was bloody, bloody cold and when it was warm it was sweltering. I never had a problem choosing the appropriate clothing then… what’s gone wrong? Where has my sixth clothing sense gone? … Grrr

Umbrella Etiquette

First things first: Happy Birthday Ali.


Now, I don’t know if I’ve said it before but it bears saying again; London is a very dichotomous society.

There are those who use manners; sorry, excuse me, sorry, thank you, sorry, pardon me, sorry, my pleasure, sorry, you’re welcome…

And those who do not; I am going to hurl abuse at you because I am annoyed, or because you brushed past me trying desperately to get off the bus, or I am drunk, or you looked at me strangely, or the bus isn’t on time, or the Police are asking me to move in a different direction from the one I wanted to go…

There are those that queue; you were first, please no dearie, I’m sure you was first…

And those that don’t; if you stand at a pedestrian crossing far enough from the curb not to get blind-sided by a buses side-mirror then it is guaranteed that by the time the light turns green, there will be five people standing in front of you.

And then there are those that practice umbrella etiquette; I am going to try not to impale you as you are walking down the street, I will lift and angle my umbrella away from yours so that they don’t catch and clash.

And those don't; I will quite happily use my umbrella as a weapon of mass destruction, scratching, gauging, ripping and swiping you without giving a frig as to the damage I'm causing and look at you like you were a piece of trash when you squeal in agony.

I prefer to be one of the former on all counts… it’s the way I’m hard wired I guess. And I’m not going to apologise for saying sorry! :-) But I will admit, in terms of the English fascination with manners, the umbrella dance holds a special place in my heart and has me transfixed every time I see it.

This morning it was raining, and for some reason known only to my deepest unconscious, I decided to walk to work. Well, when I say rain, it was really only spitting or misting. London rain often lacks commitment – which makes for a bit of difficulty on the umbrella front; to use or not to use, that is the question. You’re kinda damned if you do and damned if you don’t, as either way, you still get rather convincingly wet. However, this morning there were more umbrellas in evidence than there were people sodden and bearing it, so the Umbrella quadrille was in full swing.

Whenever it’s wet, you will see the polite Londoners, umbrellas aloft, dancing around, trying to avoid each other’s spokes and still maintain the semblance of rain-coverage. The often colourful circles rise and fall, dip and glide, pirouette and curtsy in an intricate dance of consideration and civility. It’s quite entrancing to watch when it works, to see everyone manage to thread the fine line between a dry walk and hopeless entanglement, especially at those points of convergence such as Tube Station exits. And yet, in a second, it can all be ruined by the boorish, stubborn, unmannerly care-nots who prefer to fight and impale rather than be courteous and dance.

Thankfully this morning I only encountered one boor, and it was only a minor contretemps, his umbrella suffering more than mine I fancy, and I arrived safely, if a tad damp, at work. But the rest of the walk was pure spectacle and very amusing!

A day in the sun... well, an afternoon anyway.

I was feeling much better today and so went and wandered around in the sun for a few hours. I didn’t accomplish much, but did get out and am feeling virtuous as a result.

I went walking on Saturday too … well, wobbling anyway – my bones hadn’t quite solidified at that stage. I discovered a park which is not a stones throw from our flat, going by the name of St Martin’s, and I spent a glorious two hours there baking away my aches and pains in the sun on the soft grass. I didn’t get sunburnt as I was diligently practicing my imitation of a rotisserie and was being sun-smart as all good Aussies are these days – but I’m not entirely sure I didn’t get a hint of sun-stroke, as the rest of the day is kinda blurry!

I know I had intended to go over to Camden Market and take pictures of a part of it which is slated to be torn down, and I did, but when I investigated further, I discovered that the part I cared about wasn’t about to be torn down, that it was in fact another part of the market and that it was for health and safety reasons… the which I got from a loquacious old biddy whom I had to sidle away from in the end as she was not willing to let such a receptive and obviously dopey audience out of her sight… and then I’m not sure what I did. I got home eventually and I went to bed because I woke up yesterday here, but I don’t actually remember the bits in between too well. That being the case, I decided against going out yesterday – I felt that I would be courting trouble to make the attempt.

So, here I am, alert and aware, and almost fully recovered - just in time to go back to work tomorrow.

What a way to spend the long weekend!

Sun Walking

Mad Dogs and Englishmen: I think I may have discovered why the poem came about.

This morning, walking my bit along Oxford Street, I found myself drawn inexorably to the meagre strip of sunlight to be found on the roads’ very edge, and I am not usually a sun-seeking person. My entire walk consisted, unconsciously for the main part, of getting as much sunlight as I possibly could. As I was hardly awake – no, let me rephrase – as I was somnolent, I didn’t recognise what I was doing until after my first coffee of the day kicked in, which was just now, but I was sun-walking. My body was unconsciously trying to soak up as much vitamin D as it possibly could in the shortest amount of time.

We think the English are mad for sitting on our beaches until a state of lobsterhood has been reached, but here it seems to be a biological drive for Londoners to obtain as much sunlight as possible, to store it up in effect, to get them through the winter months of no ‘D’. The sun here isn’t out often, and isn’t strong enough to burn – well, not lately anyway – so overexposure isn’t an issue. But underexposure is. I’ve heard several people refer to fears that this winter, the incidence of depression and mental illness will skyrocket as there hasn’t been enough sunlight this summer to provide Londoners the protection they need against the winter SADs. And my body is doing it’s darndest, by-passing my head completely, to get enough sun.

Very weird.

Cardiff: A Washout.

This weekend I was supposed to go to Cardiff, Wales, with Brads… supposed to being the operative words. It didn’t happen due to excessive rain… Rain in London, who’da thunk? But no, this was even excessive by English standards and has caused widespread flooding right across the west of England – Flooding to a level which hasn’t been seen since 1947 or so I’m told.

Of course, I didn’t know this when I got to Paddington station; which had been a minor feat in it’s own right as the tube system hadn’t liked the rain either. I had just watched, along with everyone else, the sky turning black at midday and the downpour that ensued. Everyone in the office stopped what they were doing and stared actually. It is supposed to be summer. No-one seems to believe it. But I have never seen so much rain come down in such a short period. An hour later the sky was blue again. But as a result, the Circle line was totally suspended due to flooding, the District, Northern and Hammersmith lines were all partially suspended and the Jubilee and Metropolitan (my routes home) were experiencing sever delays. In fact the only running lines were the Victoria and Piccadilly, which are usually the recipients of ‘Severe Delays’ and ‘Passenger Action’, so their passengers must have been laughing!

But anyway, I got to Paddington, picked up the train tickets and then saw the notices (That was stupid Kat, really stupid! Next time look BEFORE you pick them up!!!) – all the train services to the west of the country had been suspended… no one was going anywhere in fact. There was limited or no service to all destinations from Paddington.

So, no Wales.

Brads & I went and saw Harry Potter 5 instead.

The next day – a very wet Saturday – we did get to the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew as a tourist-action like substitute, but it was still raining, and we had to catch a bus when the District line got totally suspended (from being only partially suspended) when we were halfway there. The gardens were lovely and relaxing and I did get a few pictures, but you’ll have to wait until I move out of the hostel to see them, as the gear I need to transfer them onto the web is still at R & H’s.

So, now I am just waiting until I hear about the house… please, please, please whoever is out there – please can I get the house? I really, really would like to have a home again.

Sunny London... what?

Ok, so it was raining all last week pretty much, but I was rather ill and so couldn't go out, so rain was fine with me. Now that I'm all better, it's sunny again, and I really don't believe in karma, but I do believe someone out there is feeling friendly-like towards me... having said that of course, it will now start raining and be miserable. Murphy's law and reverse psychology can always be depended on to work just when you don't want them to. Although why I would want it to rain again has me puzzled - something to do with residual Australian water-hoarding tendencies perhaps?

Talking about reverse psychology, I'd like to bring you all up to date on my future activities, just because I can. My intention is to meet up with Sally and her sister by Tuesday of this week (CALL ME!!!), and go off to Poland for a week of Tourism. We're to go to a friend of Sally's wedding, and the Salt Mines there which are supposed to be spectacular as well as to Auschwitz. Why Auschwitz? Well, my reason for wanting to go to the camp stems back to my trip to Washington several years ago and my visit to the Holocaust museum there. Which I would highly recommend to anyone who is in Washington. It was incredible. But it is the only museum at which I have ever cried, and so moved me that I want to know more. I've always had a fascination with history - albeit a skewed one and generally more geared towards masonry, swords and armour than actual events - but the Holocaust has gripped me to such a degree that I want to go and witness where such an atrocity took place. So, an appalling and sobering trip that will be I'm sure.

However, and getting back to the point about reverse psych, I have then (from the 12th of June) lined up a trip to go to Edinburgh in Scotland. I want to see the castle and the town up there, so I've booked a train ticket and a Backpackers hostel. I've also been madly applying for jobs, so far unsuccessfully, but I'm hoping that since I've arranged to go to Scotland, a job will suddenly come up in London for which I am qualified and for which they want a lovely Australian holiday maker - ie me - to start as soon as possible. Hence forcing me to give up the Scotland trip (Murphy in action) but gaining me a job (the psych thing)... well, I'll live in hope at any rate!

But in the mean time, I still have a couple more days in Sunny London, so am going to have another crack at Portobello road, which I visited last Wednesday (in the rain), and found it empty - the market only functions on the weekend apparently - very disappointed. And hopefully, if Sally or Kirsten ever get in touch with me, I'll be going out and celebrating Sally's 30th with them. We were going to go and see Wicked the musical... so where are you Sally?

Anyhoo, will write again soon if I'm able. Must remember to give you all a list of where I've been so far too - have seen lots of famous sites around London so far! Very cool. But until then...

Oi Vay!

I have finally had a little relax time this weekend, enforced by some sort of wicked bug, but nice none the less. And even nicer that I have Richard and Hillary's flat to doss in whilst resting - and I have it to myself too, as they are away on a Whisky Tour of Scotland at the moment. It has been a very hectic few weeks. I still haven't blogged about the Hong Kong part of the trip, nor Helen's Hens Night - which was a lot of fun - and I've missed a lot else. Will eventually catch up when I get some down time, but that is in short supply at the moment, so this isn't going to be an accurate up-to-date kind of blog, but more of an occasional when-I-have-time-for-it blog.

I am still getting to grips with all this new technology - blogs, digital camera, wireless networks and all. For someone who hasn't been able to do a lot of really hands on IT for the last five years, it is a little confronting but also a lot of fun. The only problem is that I'm spending so much time playing, I'm getting further and further behind in blogging and archiving photos and all that gaff... ah well. It's all interesting so I'm happy and too bad if no-one else is!! :)

The weather has also conspired to keep me away from the computer until now - it had been lovely and sunny all last week. I even got a little sunburned on one of my days out! But now it is pouring with rain and has done so since yesterday afternoon. So all-in-all, good weather to stay indoors, recover health, and catch up on sleep.

I will try to do another backwards looking blog in a little while - am still trying to sort out how to publish photos to the web and get them into the blog effectively. The first program I tried called picasa2 - which is assocaited with Google and so would have been good to use as my email address and this blog are both Google based - crashed my computer every time I tried to upload photos to the web. The first time(s) I have ever had the blue screen of death on this laptop, and it is from a trusted company! Grrr... So am now trying Flickr - but I am not sure how to connect from Yahoo to Google... am having fun playing!

So, until then - adios!