these winter days

Veolia did come and empty my brown garden waste bin quite soon, once I'd let them know it got missed off the round in the week after Christmas when collections were supposed to return to normal.  I tottered out into the garden this morning before the forecast rain arrived to refill it, since it is due to be emptied again tomorrow.  Thus the year rushes by, almost on the second brown bin collection already.  The wind was bitingly cold and made me feel as though somebody had painstakingly poured glue into all the cavities in the right hand side of my face, and I decided that the garden was going to have to manage for another day without me.

The cats weren't going out either, not in this weather, and the short indignant tabby spent the morning grizzling because Our Ginger had bagged the prime spot in front of the Aga.  Our Ginger does not do mornings.  He likes to get into the bedroom while we're getting up when he can, then after a light breakfast he likes to sleep.  He potters out after lunch, if it's a nice day, though this afternoon he is just sitting in the hall and looking at the garden with an expression of disapproval verging on disbelief.  At least that's allowed the tabby to regain the sweet spot in front of the stove.

I spent a useful hour catching up with last Sunday's episode of Pienaar's Politics while washing plastic plant labels for reuse, and a ludicrous quarter of an hour trying to arrange supper with a group of friends by text.  It takes me absolutely ages to compose a text, dabbing away and having to delete every third letter because I've hit the one next to it, in between blinking in astonishment because I've brought up the third menu page of weird punctuation symbols and letters that don't even exist in the English language, when I meant to get capitals.  I can see why some of my friends prefer it to email.  Texts do normally work, and if I didn't have the Systems Administrator to help sort it out each time my laptop crashes or freezes or the broadband connection stops working, I'd be loathe to depend on email for keeping in touch.  But I do have the SA, and oh, the frustration of trying to input data on that tiny screen.  I would never, ever dare to do any sort of commerce or banking from my phone. I'd probably find I'd transferred my life savings to a complete stranger by mistake, or bought fifteen dozen tumblers to replace the one I chipped washing up when I only wanted one.

I am now cleaning the bathroom.  It's pretty nifty to be able to do the cleaning and type at the same time, no?  But actually I am waiting for the lime scale remover to work, or at least loosen the deposits on the shower screen before I go and smear them around.

Tonight it's Wolf Hall, which is the first UK drama series I've felt excited about for a very long time. I gave up with the Tudors after half an episode, never got round to watching the second instalment of the Winifred Holtby adaptation, and couldn't get into Downton at all.  But Wolf Hall is brilliant.