Spring

Beast from the East, Day 1

Today, the third day of spring, dawns with the ground still covered in snow.  Our steel heron seems to look puzzled, as if to say 'wasn't there a pond around here somewhere?'.  Of the animate birds, we have had several visits lately from a fieldfare, the first time we have seen one.  It is rather keen on the pieris and pyracantha berries, hitherto the exclusive preserve of the local blackbirds, so there are frequent spats between them.  Still, there are plenty of berries to go round, so they needn't be so neurotic.

We'd been wondering why we so often get cards left in the mail box announcing delivery failures when we haven't been out all day.  When we bought the house, we inherited a wireless battery doorbell with an immoderate appetite for batteries, at least at the chime box.  The push button then started to go on the fritz.  Replacing the battery made little difference: whether it would ring or not became thoughly hit and miss.  When, on Wednesday, the damn thing started ringing continuously, the patience was exhausted, and both parts (minus batteries, of course) found their way quickly to the bin.  Well, we now have a cheapo replacement with a chime that plugs into the mains, offering a range of melodies ranging from bing-bong to Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer.  As now configured, it renders a raucous, tinny rendering of the can-can...  In choosing that, we must have had the last similar purchase at the back of our minds.  For the house at the rue des Cancans we bought a plug-in bing-bong job.  It plainly didn'd like the damp, and the chime soon degenerated to a sickly, wavering booying-boioioioing, so that one too soon found its way to the bin.  Third time lucky, we hope.

Day 3: Orthopaedic icicle?

We've seen thick snow here before, but rarely the bitterly cold temperatures, exaggerated by a nasty sharp wind from the east.  It's hard to say for sure how deep it is, because the snow is powdery and drifts readily.  When I shovelled a path to the sidewalk and to where the postie takes a short cut from next door, I was shifting a good 10cm.  And of course, for my pains, we had a two-day gap in postal deliveries.  As for Thursday's garbage collection, rather than haul the bin out through the snow, I decided to wait and see - or rather, hear, since the noisy dustcart alerts us on its up run, collecting from us ten minutes or so later.  Having heard nothing by midday, I checked the council web site to find that they have abandoned this week's collections.  That has spared us a task for another week, by which time the snow ought to have gone.  As I write, the icicles are dripping away like mad, and there's the occasion crump! as a dollop of snow falls off the sitooterie roof.

So, this has been the week of the year when it has been helpful to have a car that drives all its wheels.  We've been out for groceries, the doorbell of course and a trip to the theatre, and although our street and those nearby are very tricky, the main roads are easy enough. 

Our theatre trip last night was excellent.  About six months ago, Martyn spotted that there was to be a touring performance of The Sound of Music at the Assembly Hall, so booked us in.  I'm not a great fan of schmaltz - and I loathe tonic sol-fa! - so I was somewhat trepidacious about going.  But the voices and performances were generally very strong, and the scenes quite ingenious, so I found I thoroughly enjoyed it.  For all my musical snobbishness, I actually quite like Rogers and Hammerstein, and the spectacle of a live musical is always a treat.  We've seen Chicago and Cabaret at the same venue, and don't feel the least ashamed of conforming to stereotype!