OZ -15 (HK -12): Too hot...

I am very excited that it's going to be winter in Australia. I like it being cold. (Actually it won't be cold, but it won't be boiling. It'll be comfortable.)

I've been so busy looking forward to the winter evenings, dark early etc that I totally failed to appreciate how hot it's going to be Hong Kong...

I realise there are ways of coping, but I really don't want to have to wear linen and sandals...

Mammoth...

I think it's the warm weather and the long summer evenings (both of which I really can't be doing with) which have resulted in my house becoming a haven for wildlife. (Again.)

This doesn't bother me much - I am not mottephobic - but there is a big difference between moth being at rest and still, and moth being flappy and confused and fast and in your face, trilling away like some tiny, winged pneumatic drill.



This one had an appreciation of art and sat (? stood??) long enough on The Great Bear for it to be captured using the time-honoured glass/piece of card technique often used on spiders. And then it got let out of the window.

It will probably twitter back in again if I put any bright lights on.

And then I might get fed up and swat it.

Urbi et Orbi...

Not your standard Papal Balcony affair, I'm afraid - just a few Easter things I need to get off my chest.

Stop moving it around...

It's confusing and inconvenient. Last Easter Sunday I was here...

(...where, coincidentally, it was also snowing)

...but that's not twelve months ago to the day - it was actually on April 8. Easter Sunday is the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox. This year it's about the earliest it can ever be because the spring equinox was on Thursday and the full moon was on Friday, so here we are. No wonder Tesco had to have their Easter Eggs on display by Boxing Day...

It was stolen by Christianity...

As we all know, the days used in the calculation - spring equinox, all druids and Stonehenge; full moon, all witches and werewolves and magic - are totally pagan things and nothing to do with the crucifixion or the resurrection. This is because Easter was happily going on for donkey's years before Christianity hit Britain - as a celebration of spring, new life, fertility etc... hence bunnies, eggs, chicks. It was a celebration of the goddess of spring and fertility Estre (or Oestre or Ishtar) and the word comes from her. As does the word "Oestrogen"...

"Do you wish to remove unused files?"

I went to Church of England primary school, so stored away in my brain, taking up valuable space, is...

There is a green hill far away
Without a city wall
Where the dear Lord was crucified
Who died to save us all.

We may not know, we cannot tell
What pains he had to bear
But we believe it was for us
He hung and suffer'd there.

He died that we might be forgiv'n
He died to make us good,
That we might go at last to heav'n,
Saved by his precious blood.

I will never need this for any useful purpose again in my life (ie. beyond blogging and quizzes)and yet I can remember it verbatim. I didn't look it up. Some kind of brain clean-up facility is needed, along the lines of the excellent example here...

Even at the age of 8, I remember being bothered about "without a city wall" because I thought that it meant it hadn't got one. It was only a green hill far away, why would it have needed one? Only as my grammatical understanding progressed did I realise it meant "outside the city wall..." (Makes mental note to use this construction more often in everyday speech to confuse people... "Where's Starbucks? Just down the way, without the front doors...")

I'm still bother'd by the whole rhyming of "forgiv'n" and "heav'n" and the sing-them-as-if-they've-only-got-one-syllable thing, both of which happen loads in hymns. I suppose it was because the tunes and the words were probably written by different people, maybe centuries apart, and someone had to crowbar it all together. Maybe if Rice and Lloyd-Webber had done it instead...*

Open the bloody shops...

Why are they closed?

It can't be to force people into church, because it doesn't work...
It can't be an objection to making profit, because all the little shops can open...
It can't be an objection to trading per se, because of car boot sales...

It must just be to remind us about suffering...

Sod health and education and social justice, in the next election I'm voting for whoever sorts the Sunday Trading laws out. Or moving to Scotland.


*Oh...

"Tell me Christ how you feel tonight
Do you plan to put up a fight?
Do you feel that you've had the breaks?
What would you say were your big mistakes?"

They did...

Whiteout...

The sun has come out now, but for the last couple of days it's been really cold. -6°C at its lowest and not much above freezing during the day. And foggy!

And this morning, although it hadn't snowed where my Dad lives, it had snowed a couple of miles to the east (closer to Russia).



Now, why couldn't it have done that at Christmas?

So here it is...

...Merry Christmas! Everybody's having fun!



Yup, it's officially Yuletide and it gets earlier every year. The Holiday Inn in Southampton is going for the festive crowd, even though it's only June. It must be time to book!

This pleases me, as I think I probably have Reverse Seasonal Affective Disorder. I like the winter and find summer a bit depressing. But now the longest day is over and the nights are drawing in, it must be time to get your big jumpers out, light the fire, eat hearty soup and cheer up!

So, what do you want for Christmas...?

Grey Skies, More Towers...

...and no Pancakes* :-(

The weather wasn't great in London today and the Thames looked steely and very threatening. At 7.2m, it was the highest tide this year so far and at times it looked in danger of coming over the edge...



I worry about these things. Time to get up high!

It's officially Tower week. Already been up the Spinnaker Tower and there are plenty in London to keep the theme going.

Firstly, the Monument. A tower in all but name, built to commemorate the Great Fire. All you need to know about its history and purpose is here...



...Bakers, Puddings, Christopher Wren etc.

The last time I climbed the 311 steps to the top was pre-1981. I know this because my Gran climbed them too, kept going by the fact that an American on the way down told her there was a café at the top**.

But the views are good, even on a grey day...



...up and down...



Next Tower is The Tower of London.



Again, not been here for a very long time, but it seems to have smartened up its act. Lots of interactive touch-screen stuff and the Queen Elizabeth II Travelators to take you past the Crown Jewels. God forbid you might actually want to stop and look.

It was not very busy, surprisingly, but such tourist groups as there were...



...just took photos of all the predictable things.



Of course, I would never do that.

And finally on to Tower Bridge.



Iconic, obviously, but going in and up is better for the views it offers of other things...



..than the views it offers of itself...



You can go in the Engine Room now too. Which is impressive...



...until you realise that these engines don't work the bridge anymore. That's all done by the new-fangled electricity now.

Finished off the day by going to see Boeing-Boeing at the Comedy Theatre. Don't normally like farces, but this one had Michelle Gomez from Green Wing and Feel the Force in it and she was effortlessly brilliant!

*Apologies to The Street family, who didn't have me there to flambé anything this year...
** There isn't...

---

More photos on...

Out with the old...

Just a couple of things to get out of the way before the year is over.

Firstly, I'm not looking forward to getting back to Southampton if this weather forecast is anything to go by...



I'm hoping the snow will have gone and the temperature risen by about 20 degrees by the time I get back tomorrow. Or perhaps Google just got it wrong...

Secondly, a bit of a rant. I spent most of yesterday complaining loudly about one particular aspect of the New Year's Honours list. That particular aspect being that June Sarpong, here depicted in all her uselessness...



...has been awarded an MBE. For services to broadcasting. Even though it's the lowest of the BEs, I will remain astounded by this well into January and probably beyond. She will just get on my nerves more and send me diving for the remote control much more quickly than she did before.

Services to broadcasting. I ask you... Obviously being able to speak clearly and coherently and not like you have been on the vodka is no longer a prerequisite for high achievement in broadcasting. Either that, or it was all a terrible mail merge mistake at the Palace - this is my preferred version of events.

I worry that this time next year we might be saluting Dame Heather Small or, as has already been suggested, Sir Jamie Cullum.

Help.

Fog off...

"We got one of the last slots on the Dover to Calais ferry..." whinged Family A.

"The only thing to do was to drive..." complained Family B.

"This is the first time we have tried to have Christmas with our Italian family..." moaned Famiglia C.

"We'll try tomorrow but otherwise I don't know what we'll do..." grumbled Overindulged Delayed Passenger D, as she clutched a blanket tighter around her shoulders.

Well, its sunny now...

..so stop your snivelling, remember there's a lot worse in some people's lives than being delayed at an airport for a few hours, get on your planes and bugger off and leave us all in peace for Christmas.

Fearsome creatures...

I'm sure I read something about this in the Guardian, but apparently it's something to do with a very warm summer and then some rain and then some more hot weather. Whatever the reason, I thought it was time to get my own back on the pseudo-Australians and their tales of (possibly deadly) fauna.

So I'm letting you know that my house has been invaded thus.

(Don't click that link if you are of a nervous disposition. Oh, too late...)

I've successfully tamed and cleared three in about the past week, but comfort myself with those old wives' tales about them only coming into clean houses. Although not especially phobic, indeed quite at ease, I still prefer not to comfort myself with the urban myths about them crawling into your open mouth as you sleep...

Where's Steve Irwin when you need him, eh?

Today, it rained...

...a lot!

Snow had fallen, snow on snow, etc

There are other advantages to being up north for Christmas (other than getting to see my niece) - one is that is snows! (Which it never does in Hampshire...)



However, taste and decency can be noticeable by their absence in all parts of the country...



This particular crime was captured by my sister in one of the rare moments she is not currently spending at the hospital.

Here Comes the Rain Again...

It must be half-term at the seaside.

Came back to Southampton via Devon and stayed with my sister, brother-in-law and my Dad at Branscombe. And the dog was there too.

Didn't see much of Devon as there were copious amounts of rain, fog, wind, more rain and some rain.

We did go for a walk to the beach. Here is the dog, looking slightly demonic, pulling us down a 1 in 4 hill...

...and here is the sea. Also looking slightly demonic...

...but very grey and British and just how we like it.

Got back to news that Gill and Calum were safely back in New Zealand, and that other friends from college, Steve and Lynn had had a second daughter, Emily Rose.

Call me Diarmuid Gavin...

It's now 5pm on Sunday and, contrary to the forecast, it's chucking down. However, Jerry and Nicky came over this morning and we managed to get a lot done in the good weather.

Garden started off very overgrown...



...as did nothing to it during the summer while in New Zealand. Actually, that is a just an excuse, because I wouldn't have done anything to it during the summer anyway.

We worked very hard...



...and found interesting wildlife...



...took loads of stuff to the tip (where there was a big queue and lots of slightly chavvy people picking over the crap other people had left...)



...and wore trendy waterproof kagoules (is that how you spell that?) when it rained...



Have no gate at the moment (Thanks B&Q Stock Control), but I actually bought things to grow in the garden today - see firs above, rather than ripping everything out, so my fingers are ever so slightly greener than ever before...

Roll on the Chelsea Flower Show.