Cracked Ice

Well, I must apologise for being thoroughly rubbish and not posting anything for about forty years. I have an excuse for last week, but that's it. I am a bad person.

So I guess everyone's excited about snow and that. I must say it's beginning to grate on me a little bit, but that's my fault really, for not finishing uni work and therefore feeling too guilty to go out and play in it. We got home from holiday (eventually) on the 6th to find our lane beautifully snowploughed but with the drive under a foot of snow and the SmartCar nearly buried (ha, good). I've been having trouble adjusting to these ridiculous temperatures after a week of steady 30C heat, enjoyably cold showers, Caribbean steel bands and watermelon consumption. I'm not down with the mercury being permanently below freezing, having lukewarm showers because anything hotter feels boiling on my freezing cold hands and toes and eating massively stodgy hot food like chilli (although I do love chilli). Best thing about this weather is the view out my window, which looks out across to the Malverns and is amazing, and the fact I get to wear the best in winter fashions; altogether much easier to do well than summer clothes that require flat stomachs, a tan, and perky breasts that don't need a bra. Also, they cover up the ridiculous tan lines I acquired by falling asleep on a sunlounger during the hottest part of the day on the first full day of being there. Sometimes I think I need sending into the corner wearing a dunce hat.

So - the Christmas season. A week of drink-fuelled hilarity and riot, followed by a couple of days of sobering family gatherings (sobering due to the intense insanity of my family, and kept in check by redressing the sobering balance with Stowfords), followed by a completely - no joke - sober week in the Caribbean, followed by a week of minus temperatures and snow, which brings us to now. I tell you what, New Year's Eve on a beach drinking fruit punch is a bit weird. Like, it isn't cold. I wasn't drunk. I didn't know any of the people I was with apart from the three I was related to. I got up at 9am the following morning and had an alfresco swim followed by a civilised breakfast. And I think I could quite happily spend every New Year's Eve like that. When I found out I was going to be away over that particular night I felt an overhwelming sense of relief that I wouldn't have to make a decision about what to do and where to go to celebrate. At least on Christmas Day everyone knows you're going to be with your family, but on New Year's Eve there's all of a sudden about 4 different places you could be, with 4 slightly different sets of people, but the few people you would like to spend it with are scattered throughout those 4 events... Oh it is stressful. And considering you normally wake up with your head on the loo seat and no recollection of the night anyway, it hardly matters. Next year I intend to be in some far-flung country (a hot one), wearing flip flops, a sarong and dreadlocks, with my travelling buddy as the only person I need to worry about being in the same place as. I feel this will help me on my way to becoming a chilled out and entirely stress-free hippy; a necessary measure before I enter the horrors of career-driven job hopping.

As usual, I have rambled off the beaten track and onto a cunningly hidden bit of frozen pond - similar, in a way, to something I did whilst walking the dog in 8 inches of snow earlier. But, again like earlier, the ice didn't break, it just cracked, and I continued along on my way unscathed... See you anon.