Friday 6th December 2013

Despite the days getting ever shorter, the fact that I drive to work during the dawn, and drive home in dusk; the weather has been very kind to us indeed. Certainly, yesterday we got the first seasonal frost, or the first one since last winter anyway. There are golden leaves on most trees still, and on a sunny day the countryside is still beautiful. Our usual autumnal storms have been far and few. So, when the news of a storm coupled with high tides and a storm surge the realisation that it really is the season when we should be feeling much colder than we are.

A storm surge is caused by a very low pressure system creating a bulge of high water in the sea, the storm winds then send this down the North Sea, being funnelled through the Straights of Dover. Which we live near you know! So all day yesterday, we listened as the high tide and high winds crept down the east coast towards us in East Kent. High tide came at half midnight, and I don’t think there was much flooding, at least in Kent.

But as the clocked ticked towards ten o’clock and bedtime, news came via Twitter, at first, that Nelson Mandela had passed away. I guess this is one of those ‘where were you moments’. Mandela was considered a terrorist by the British government right up to the end of the 1980s, Thatcher even reiterated this whilst she was still Prime Minister. What happened in the years between was that he was released, and lead his people and country into reunification. After 27 years of imprisonment, he forgave his captors and the regime that put him there and lead South Africa into reconciliation. We will not see his kind again.

Mum is in hospital again. After a few weeks of great improvement, she has slipped back. Not sure quite what is wrong, she has something wrong with her digestion, and now her leg is showing signs of ulcerating again. So, her doctor has had her admitted to hospital once again. We spoke to her last night, she seems in good spirits, if subdued. I guess just glad that someone is taking her condition seriously, which seems to be a problem with many doctors.

My flu/allergy attack is getting better, little by little. At least I can sleep now and so do a day’s work without falling asleep with my face embedded on the computer keyboard. Which is always good. I did have to leave work at midday on Monday and have Tuesday off. I woke up Tuesday morning feeling like one of those cartoon characters who had been run over by a road roller and in an imprint of myself in a road. I ached all over and felt like I had been hit by a train. Yuk.

Wednesday night saw Louis Suarez score his 8th, 9th, 10th and 11th goals in 4 games against City, and we slip, or rather crash to another battering against Liverpool 5-1. Suarez becomes the first player in the Perm to score three hat tricks against the same team. Sadly, he did this feat in consecutive games. Sigh. There’s always The Hawthorns, another one of our lesser happy hunting grounds.

Thursday night we came back home from work to find the house cold as ice. Our fears were that the dodgy thermostat had given up the ghost and we would have try to find a man who knew about such things and how to replace them. In the end it was just the pilot light having gone out, but as we sat there in our overcoats the realisation struck that we are that close to being back in the stone age.



So that is the week in words, but no pictures as I have taken only three photos this week, all of the same two bottles of beer. It keeps me busy I guess.