Cold.

Cold and sunny today.

The snow is gradually retreating but it's not warming up enough for the builder to come tomorrow so he's stood down his team and will come ........ another time. Forgive me if I sound jaded but even accounting for the lead time for the window this work could have been done months ago. I couldn't stand to be looking at bare walls and dust sheets in the hall so this afternoon I put away the dust sheets and hung everything back on the walls.

As it looked like it was getting warmer I drove down to the zoo. This time I cleared the windscreen myself as Peter's finger is now painful and swollen due to cold induced arthritis. But at the zoo the weeds were still frozen solid even in the gravel. There's no point in leaving the frozen roots in the ground so that ruled out any weeding. Instead I spent a couple of hours removing old bindweed stems from the wire mesh of the animal cages. I'd removed the roots earlier in the year but left the stems for another day. Even dead they are unsightly and make the place look neglected. As long as I remembered to keep wriggling my toes I stayed warm when I worked in the sun but the minute I moved away and into the shade I could feel the heat being drained out of my body. I had plenty of clothes on including four layers on my hands (fingerless gloves, thin woolly gloves, latex gloves and hide work gloves) but there is a limit to how much you can put on your feet before your boots won't fit.

Back home I warmed up my fingers and toes as I ate a bowl of couscous and cheese and watched the green returning to the hills. Once again I'm blogging early as I have to drive to town for a joint choir practice with the other choir we'll be singing carols with. Better have a quick run through of the words and parts before I go.