ice

The Systems Administrator got up this morning to go to the loo, and hurried back to bed saying it was jolly cold out there.  I wondered whether I could get away without taking a shower, but decided that would be the start of the slippery slope to becoming Dylan Winter (who walked the length of Offa's Dyke with two horses, one of which unexpectedly gave birth in the night.  One priceless dialogue ran thus.  Winter to shopkeeper: Excuse me, may I ask you something?  Shopkeeper: Yes.  Winter: Do I smell?  Shopkeeper: Yes, you do, rather.  Dylan Winter's other greatest line was: I've just done something really stupid.  I've set my tent on fire.  There was also the time on a canal barge trip when the horse fell in the canal.  He was one of my favourite ever radio journalists).

The weather station in the sitting room told me that it was minus four and a half degrees Celsius outside, when I got downstairs after having my shower.  Actually, the shower wasn't too bad.  I have been experimenting this winter and not using the electric blanket, the theory being that the cold will stimulate my metabolism to crank up a gear and generate more heat.  It seems to be working, though I wear thermals as a matter of course, even indoors.  I had to defrost the chickens' water, and there was a deputation waiting by the bird table.

The cats have decided they do not like Felix.  They liked it yesterday, and last week, but as of this morning they do not like it.  The fat indignant tabby ate her's, which made me think it could not be off, since the fat tabby is the most suspicious cat I have ever met, with a highly developed sense of self preservation, and if she thinks cat food is safe to eat then it almost certainly is.  Our Ginger had a nibble as well, but the big tabby and the black cat just stared at the Felix, and ran away.  This is a nuisance, as it is on special offer in Tesco and we have several packs in stock.  The Systems Administrator had to get a pallet of Whiskas, to keep them going until they have forgotten that they don't like Felix.

The countryside looked very beautiful, with a vivid blue sky, low but bright sun, and tiny ice crystals glittering on every twig and seed head.  The wind turbine was not turning at all.  You do have admit that's a drawback of wind power.  It's the coldest day of the year, and the electricity generator has stopped working.  I should have rushed out and taken photographs for you, but I am not very good at photography, and the internet is already stuffed full with pictures of frost.  The best pictures are on radio anyway, so you can use your imaginations.  I walked down to the post box to post my Christmas cards, those that aren't being handed over in person or stuffed through people's doors when I'm passing, and little pieces of ice fell from the lime trees as I passed under them.

I set out to make more bread.  This will be the third lot, the second having come out like real bread as well.  I'm now on to a new bag of flour, and the dough came out significantly wetter, even though I measured all the ingredients as precisely as before.  It mystifies me when the authors of bread books get very strict about how you should weigh the water down to the last gramme for greater accuracy and not just measure it in a jug, since the moisture content of flour varies from one batch to another.  I didn't add extra flour, thinking I would see how the wetter dough came out.  I still don't have the hang of how long bread is going to take, and vaguely imagined we'd be able to have one of these loaves with the soup for lunch, before realising that would mean having a very late lunch.

After lunch the Systems Administrator had to go outside and chop more wood for the stove.  By chop I mean split and saw some of the stack that's seasoning into small enough pieces to fit in the stove, rather than the forestry equivalent of the cookery instruction for jugged hare to first catch your hare (I have just noticed how much alliteration there is in the penultimate phrase.  Sir Gawain and the Green Knight or Beowulf don't pack in any more than that).

I tracked down addresses for my cousin and the defector to south London, and wrote a Christmas card to my old horticultural tutor.  The SA did not want to go for a proper walk, because the tooth is still sensitive to cold air.  The two cats remained on hunger strike faced with the Felix.  Later on I will have to drive very carefully to a music society committee meeting.  That's about as exciting as it gets at this time of year, when the thermometer is below freezing.