bunn

 It is very cold! On New Year's Eve, it was snowing as I went out to walk the dogs, though the land down below was clear and green, and the sun came out as we were walking.  This very thin coat of snow meant houndy zooming, even from Rosie! Not too old to frolic, apparently.

( Read more... )

Friday : Snow, but not enough to make getting out of village a problem. Philmophlegm in Plymouth. Friday evening, MORE snow. PP decides to stay in (marginally) sunnier climes rather than try to get home in snow through dark slippery lanes.

Sat: Pp and I agree to meet in Tavistock. I make it as far as the local pub, then my car begins sliding inexorably backwards.( Read more... )

Sunday. The snow is melting a bit and the roads are probably just about driveable, but I have no particular reason to drive, so instead ( Read more... )

So: the pics:
( Obligatory snow pics, with dogs (but no nude dogs this time)  )

 ( I made myself an extra greyhound!  )

( Old dog, new home )

( Another dog expands his wardrobe )

We still have snow, even though it's melted across practically all the rest of Cornwall, the Northfacing gloom of our village retains it like nobody's business.  Having had the ice experience at Christmas, the entire village has developed Snow Worries, and as soon as our 1cm fell, everyone charged out with brooms and spades and grit.  I managed to brush our steps and path myself but by the time I'd made it to the drive someone else had already done that!  

I was amused to notice that where some people had brushed the road, they had neatly done just their own section, creating a perfect snowy line across the road at the edge of 'their patch'.  I wonder if they do that by eye, or actually measure it...?

I've done sod-all this Christmas really, I've just pigged out, read a lot,  walked dogs and footled about.    I haven't even put up my exciting new Bat box or my new Owl box (though I have thought about where I might put them, at least) and I've done a tiny bit of carving, enough to create a tiny pile of chippings that wouldn't fill a pencil sharpener.  

There's a sign up on the local garage noticeboard advertising saxophone lessons.  I haven't played with my Gigantic Saxomophone for ages.  I wonder...?

More snow today. I was thinking of changing my snowy background on this blog since last week spring was springing so enthusiastically, but perhaps it's too soon.

It was that very fine snow, so though it had formed a crunchy half-inch layer, it had also blown into blobs on all the bushes and drifted into the banks, so everything was covered and sparkly.   There were a lot of rabbit footprints, including one group where the rabbits had clearly been fighting or playing in the snow, deer prints and I also found something that I think must have been a weasel - four tiny feet landing almost together, then about 6-8 inches further on, another group of four, as though it was bounding through the snow.  

There was a fox about too, I could smell him, but I can never remember how to tell the difference between fox footprints and small dog ones so I'm not sure if I saw his prints or not.   The hounds became very excited and ran about looking in holes, but I'm pretty sure they don't know much about being foxhounds either.

I thought the deer tracks that I saw were roe, as they were quite small: Flat Coated Retriever Lady told me that she had found what she thought was red deer tracks accompanied by a young one, but I didn't find those.   I hope they were all red deer: they are much easier to deal with as they have so much more sense than roe and can run like a horse, so if Az sees one it's not really a problem.   

Roe are much more of a problem for me, as they dont' go very fast and tend to freeze until you are practically on top of them.  (I was interested to read in 'Understanding the working Lurcher' that the author thinks roe deer are idiotic animals that behave in a loony way.  This is my impression too: they just seem to be naturally a bit gormless as wildlife goes.  Sadly,   I also discovered from reading that book that if Az is a working lurcher, he's a very bad one with absolutely none of the normal hunting skills, so my approach to roe deer will continue to involve a muzzle and a lead.  I was hoping to discover more about how working lurcher owners train their dogs to take only the designated targets, but basically you seem to need a dog that knows what it's about and doesn't get so worked up.)

I have noticed several times over the recent snowy weather that working from home seems to be used as a euphemism for taking a day off.   I also note that there have been the usual blanket annoucements that the country has lost X billion pounds because some people have not gone to work.

This makes me a bit grumpy.  No doubt there are lots of people who have seized on an excuse to take a day off. And there are people who cannot do their work if they aren't in a specific place.  And there are people whose jobs are very linear and cannot make up the work not done one day the next, or by working faster.  There are even people whose work is really urgent and important, though my own feeling is that there aren't half as many of those, as people who would like to think of themselves as important...

I work from home all the time. You can get quite a lot done working from home.  Often you can get more done, because offices often aren't very good places to actually do work, filled as they are with people wanting a chat, people creating a drama, people wanting advice and technical support, gossipping, procrastinating, making coffee, relocating furniture,  sharing rude videos...

I am very dubious that the country loses £billions because some people didn't make it to work for a couple of days.  If they walked through the snow, fell over and broke a leg, would that not put them out of work for much longer, not to mention making extra hassle for the emergency services guys whose work really is genuinely important?   

Plus, school closures.  Why on earth not...?  It's not like a couple of days off school is going to imperil anyone's entire education, whereas given that we don't get snow that often, surely there's an argument that allowing children to experience will in itself be a learning experience: probably a more enriching and useful one than double geography.  

Old people's services. Surely when everything is covered in ice, putting off the Old People's Tea for a couple of days is not a failure, but a sensible measure to prevent piles of damaged pensioners building up on the pavements?

It's OK to work not in a workplace.  Actually, I think it's OK to slack for a day and then work really hard the next day: if you have that sort of job then probably that happens whereever you do it anyway. Working and learning doesn't only happen in schools and offices, or when specially organised!