Still Life In the Time Of Coronavirus part never-ends

 

sigh. Hands-Face-Space but our dear leader here in Scotland still insists the UK wide slogan is confusing and not for Scots, the wretched little harridan. She agreed a UK wide plan for the pandemic management over the Christmas week and promptly u-turned. As she does. Roll on May 2021 when we normal Scots can again try voting the little cow out of Holyrood!

 

FTR, Hands-Face-Space works. Works really really well.

 

Right, so onto other things. 

 

Ten years ago today (plus one, the actual date was 25th Nov 2010) the snow began falling and didn't stop until NYD 2011. At least where we lived (a county in NE Scotland). By early evening the snow was deep and glistening in the sharp cold and every flake hit the ground with a soft but discernable thud. It was magical. 

 

We all expected it to last a few days then melt off leaving us with a dull grey but snowless Christmas - who knew Christmas would see us and surrounding towns essentially cut-off owing to massive snowpack and ice so deep and heavy it pulled rones (rain gutters) off eaves and encased entire motor vehicles and buildings? It became the morning chore to break the overnight icicles off the roof edge, chip the ice off the path, and rake the snow off the roof.

 

Having recently arrived to Scotland after decades of living in hurricane and tornado prone areas, I spent the first few months (mid-August to mid-November) building a store cupboard sufficient to get us through several weeks (oh ok, the goal was three months worth of food and supplies storage and I'd achieved that goal by Halloween 2010) despite Paul's raised eyebrows and tut-tutting and outright open derision at my insistence we'd be glad of a fully stocked pantry.

 

And I was correct - not only we were glad of it but the neighbour with two small children was glad of it when the shops were bare and she had no milk, no bread, not even a tin of baked beans or soup. We had enough to share and we did. 

 

Yes, alright, the power never even flickered in our neighbourhood but had it gone down, we were ready for that - barbecue and charcoal, small LPG space heater, blankets, warm clothing, stored water for bathing-cleaning-small laundry in a galvanised tub he really wasn't happy to see (until we moved up here to the downsizer and the power went down long enough for me to start heating water on the barbie so I could do some dish-washing). 

 

Every day at least once a day we walked (skidded, slipped, skied without skis) down to the local shops - not to buy anything but to see how stocks were being replenished - or not. It's how we discovered our neighbour sobbing outside one of the shops at not being able to find so much inside as a turnip. 

 

Once it was over, snow melted back enough for gritting to happen on our low-priority streets so the lorries could get through, I invested in an adult sized plastic sledge (sled). Over the 'Big Freeze' I'd see countless shoppers hauling home what goods they could find on sledges and it made such good sense to me to have one hanging about to use 'in-case'. Naturally we've not needed it for that purpose, in fact we've not had even enough snow since then to justify climbing to the designated sledging spots for a bit of SnowDay fun (dammit). But we have if we need it. 

 

Right so that's my 'Gosh I wish it would snow like that again' moment. Onto to...

 

I FECKING HATE VARIFOCAL SPECTACLES - WHY DID I LET THE OPTOMETRIST TALK ME INTO THEM, WHY ????!!!!

 

First of all, huge shout-out to Glasses Direct, wow are they great! Superb customer service, ordering couldn't be easier once all the gorgeous frames are trawled through and a choice made. But blimey do I hate these *&$"*ing varifocals! I hate them so much I went back to Glasses Direct and ordered another pair of specs as bifocals (they don't do trifocals, no-one does unless I'm happy to splash out ££££s for the damn things) so I can finally see the embroidery AND the telly or read the labels at the supermarket AND find the aisle I need. 

 

What I'd like to know is if trifocals work (and believe me they do) why have they been phased out unless ££££s are paid for the 'antiquated' style - yes, my optometrist called my trifocals 'antiquated' and he said that with such an unpleasant sneering condescension I allowed myself to be persuaded to go for varifocals - pity his optical shop didn't have the frame width I need which cost him a sale and I had to order online from Glasses Direct. 

 

I'll never use that optometrist again but Glasses Direct has me for a customer for life.  Within a short hour of ordering my frames were sent to the lab (after a quick email exchange making some confirmations as to why I prefer to go with bifocals and which vision fields to put in the specs) and I'll be having my nice bifocals in a few days. And I'll FINALLY be able to see without being nauseated every fecking time I turn my head. grrrrrrrr!

 

So, that's where we are at the moment. Paul is hauling the Christmas Tree in from the shed, I'm pulling the boxes of decorations and baubles out of the cupboard. And we've done a Big Big Shop so we're basically tucked up for the winter and ready to get decking the halls and gardens for the 'festive season'. 

 

Now all we need is some good heavy snow!