Getting wintry

No snow here yet, but the frost didn't lift fully yesterday, despite bright sunshine.  And yet the New Guineas in the hanging baskets are clinging to life: I might even get a few more cuttings from them.  Today it's wet and dreich, with a wind that makes it feel colder than it really is.  I hoovered up a couple of bags of wet leaves from the front yesterday - not a job I relish, but less crippling than doing the job with a rake.

We're chipping away at the Christmas shopping, though with little enthusiasm.  The cards are all away save for those destined for a few art class absentees.  The sitting room is starting to look cheerful, with a festoon of Christmas greetings already round the double door frame.  The Christmas tree seems to have survived in its builder's bucket outside: we plan to turn it out and re-pot it in fresh compost before we bring it back inside. 

Not sure what to make of events in Brussels this week.  It all rather echoes my experience of the UK's relationship with the EU: as a Greek MEP put it years ago, we in the North argue and grizzle about proposed EU law, but once it's in place, we enforce it.  In the south they say yes and sign anything, and then systematically ignore the obligations that they've taken on.  No doubt grossly exaggerated, but I'd be surprised if this difference of attitudes wasn't at the root of the current problems.  But the fact remains that the credit ratings of France and Germany remain (for the moment) higher than that of the USA.

We had a day of takeaways on Friday.  Since we'd  been invited to dinner, hence expected to eat later than we normally do, we had fish and chips from the local chippie at lunch time.  On arriving at our hosts' place, it transpired that they'd completely forgotten they'd invited us, so we (all of us) finished up having a Bangladeshi takeaway from the place near where we used to live.  And the evening was just fine!  Said friends have taken on a vast pile overlooking farm land near the junction of the Hastings and Lewes roads.  It needs huge amounts of work: rather them than us.