Hestia and....The Bleak Midwinter

I'd get those gutters fixed, frankly.

Scotland put up a big 'Closed Due To Bad Weather' sign at the border a few days ago when we got hit with more snow in a week than we've had since mammoths cruised up and down Sauchiehall Street.

And I'm not talking about that hardy breed of girl that staggers around after midnight wearing a two-sizes too small boob tube and denim mini skirt in sub-zero temperatures singing Don't You Wish Your Girlfriend Was Hot Like Me into an emty lager bottle whilst eying up some shivering youth waiting at a bus stop.



The airports were closed, the motorways became giant car parks.  Articulated lorries jack-knifed on sliproads meaning that the only thing you could do in the blizzarding snow was count mile after mile of stationery red tail lights.

Some lucky people spent the night in a John Lewis store.  Others in an M&S and a Tesco.  Spare a thought for the people enroute to Cambuslang who had to spend the night shivering in their bus.  A service bus.  Not a coach with inside lights, a telly and a toilet. Just your usual ricketty bus.  I would rather die and go to hell.  I imagine the travellers felt that they already had.

I watch all this from my snow-free island retreat with trepidation.  Tertarus is due home next week and it's looking dodgy.  I'm not trepidatous about Tertarus getting off the boat.  I'm trepidatous wondering when will be the right moment to start tidying the house.

Tidy too early and I peak before he gets home.  This results in the house degenerating into its usual Beirut-esque quagmire of piles of magazines and discarded shoes so that when he comes through the back door, drops his case, sighing in despair - he thinks that I've not even tried.

Start tidying too late and he gets home before I've completed all the jobs required....and he drops his case, sighs and thinks that I've not even tried.

We'll not go into the leaking mouse in the mouse-trap from a few leaves ago, nor the cure for cancer that he uncovered in the fridge.  I'm not naturally domesticated, ok?  I don't take PRIDE in a tidy home, there's just more important things to do in life.

For Tertarus though, nothing is more important than order and neatness.  In his mother's house, there were no drawers jammed closed with piles of QVC receipts.  No stacks of magazines next to the sofa.  No shelves stacked 2-deep with books.  No cupboards crammed with ancient cookery books.  In fact, there was nothing that indicated much of a personality at all.  When *I* die, he's going to need to hire a SKIP. Possibly two.

So you can see my dilemma.

Plus, it's Christmas.  I stepped out of the nanowrimo month into December without a Christmas present in my head or a card in the house.  I've still not bought a single card.  It's making me feel a bit panicked - like discovering you're on the bus in your slippers.

Have you actually tried to thin down your Christmas card list? All that happens is you get to 22 December and you have to run out to a Charity shop and buy several packs of emergency cards to frantically send out to all those people whom you had carefully scored off your list.  Why? Because THEY sent YOU a card. And you don't want to look bad.

The other problem is the heating.  I have the heating on until pretty late at night because the house, although beautiful, is like a goddamned crypt.  I took a meter reading and worked out how much I'd spent in a month. Just let's say I could really help reduce the country's national debt.

Tertarus is a firm believer in turning the heating off and just putting on lots of jumpers.  I am sitting typing to you wearing a bra, thermal vest, lambswool jumper and Weirdfish fleece.  And jeans and what not of course.  And the heating is on.  I don't need blood circulating in my veins, I need antifreeze.

Anyway, enough of the snowy doom and gloom.  Here's something to cheer you up, dear reader!

I've got a bit of a treat lined up for you over the next few days.  First of all, we'll be having a pukka GIVEAWAY thanks to those lovely people at Waldo Pancake!  It will run for a week or so and the lucky winner will receive a goody bag dispatched directly from WP Towers.  I thought it best not to get it sent here because, frankly, you will only end up with a goody pencil because I would make off with all the lovelies.

In the week before Christmas, we are going to have a Carol Concert on the blog.  Yes, really.  I'm going to load up some little widgetty things into the blog and the words to 3 carols.  The music will be provided by ME (courtesy of Frank, my poor music teacher who has been drilling Oh Come All Ye Faithful and similar into me since about September!) and you WILL sing along. Slowly. Wherever you might be.  Because life is too short to be sensible all the time.  Right?

OK - get practising!!!