Rites of January

Pleasant ride along to Edenbridge on Friday.  At Thursday's art class Miss said that she needed more paintings to pack out our little exhibition at Bridges.  There was a tall thin space alongside my Madeira and Seven Sisters seascapes, so I smacked some D-rings on my Madeira triptych and wheeled it along.  We were treated to fine views of the frosty countryside, and as usual we made a circular route of it: out via Ashurst and Hever, home via Four Elms, Bough Beech and Penshurst.  Eye-wateringly cold, however, as it has been for quite a few days now.  Still, the sunshine is very good for the spirits.

Although I've had the car for three months now, I'm still learning its little ways.  The transmission behaves like the freewheel on certain old Rovers and Saabs when you select the 'Eco' mode.  When you lift off the throttle, the revs drop to about 800 and it coasts, ticking over, I believe, on two cylinders.  As soon as you touch a pedal again, the motor reengages, making it safer than a freewheel proper.  The motor cuts out when you come to a halt, which is usually OK, but is not welcome when one's waiting to turn right across the traffic.  Consequently, one needs to think ahead and start up in good time to avoid a rather jerky take-off.  The car is much better at parking itself than its predecessor, and adds perpendicular parking to its bag of tricks.  I'm starting to see slightly better fuel consumption figures as I learn and the motor loosens.  But I am pretty much resigned to never getting the hang of the 'infotainment' kit, and I cannot master the choreography to get it to open or close the tailgate when I have my hands full of shopping!

Last night was the Mayor's annual charity quiz.  Very well attended as usual, with 47 teams of 8 competing.  Martyn did well at the pictures round, and we weren't too bad at our joker, Science and Nature.  It helped that I'd spent a while during the afternoon looking at science quizzes on the internet, thus discovering the source of many of the questions....  The final round was set by the the self-styled 'Mayor Dave', and was about the man himself, his career in local politics etc.  This gave a huge advantage to his cronies, which was inappropriate.  The supper included in the ticket price was really rather poor - industrial mini scotch eggs, pork pies and suchlike.  These jaundiced remarks are of course in no way influenced by our finishing close the the bottom of the field.  Still, the Assembly Hall's Sauvignon Blanc was immeasurably better than Cunard's, and healthily under half the price!

Fortunately, the snow came and went fairly quickly, but a partial thaw followed by hard frost made for very tricky driving - we suspect - and for noisy early mornings as hardy commuters crunched past on the frozen slush.  The garden is pretty much frosted in, with ice on the pond for the past week or so.  There is a little bit of colour from some primulas and of course from the bright red bark of the cornus, and the buds are fattening on the magnolia and rhododendrons.  The woodpeckers have started drumming nearby, and the robins are haranguing each other.  So I guess spring isn't too far off.