Snowed in and fed up

[shewhomust]

This is how Twelfth Night ought to go - and for a happy few no doubt that's how it is, there will be Phantoms at the Phil and stories and dining in good company afterwards and a general sense that the Christmas festivities have been brought to a satisfactory close.

But not for us; after much muttering and reluctance, we decided not to risk the trip into Newcastle. I'm very disappointed: I'm tired of cancelling things and not going out or seeing people, and this is one I always look forward to. Almost as bad as missing the Phantoms is the not knowing whether we've made the right decision: perhaps we could have gone (and made our way home again) without mishap, and we're just being feeble?

But no-one is ever told what would have happened. The snow is still thick - and in places, thick on an under-sheet of ice - on our street, which is a steep hill. durham_rambler and some of the neighbours try to keep the roadway clear and gritted, at least on the bend, but they have emptied the salt bin, and the snow keeps coming. If we could get the car to the bottom of the hill (and we probably could; though whether we could get it up the hill again on our return is more uncertain) the major roads are likely to have been cleared, though the radio keeps reporting that the motorway is closed because yet another lorry has jack-knifed* across it.

Or we could try public transport: but the train service (which is at the best of times not wonderful for coming back from Newcastle in the evening - we'd have to come straight home after the stories) has been very disrupted, with delays and cancellations. And although our house is on a level with the station, getting there involves going down a hill and back up another one, and I don't do downhill on ice. And the road up to the station hasn't been cleared, it seems.

So I think we've made the right decision. I don't have to like it, though.

I'm just whining at missing out on a treat; I am aware that in the great scheme of things, we are not at all badly off. We have heating and lighting, running water and internet. We have milk and newspaper deliveries. (There was no post today, but perhaps no-one has written to us today. It can happen). We have, admittedly, rather more rubbish than we should have, as the refuse collection and recycling is the one service that hasn't managed to cope, but we don't generate much rubbish these days, so we can live with it. The greater risk is that we may be lost under an avalanche of empty bottles.

The best thing I can do, I think, is go to bed with a book about life in the Arctic.

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*I was wondering whether anyone ever used the word jack-knife nowadays without referring to the misdeeds of articulated lorries; and then someone actually asked me what a jack-knife is**, which I think confirms that they don't.

**I didn't, but I was willing to guess; it seems obvious that it's a pen-knife, or some such knife whose blade folds into the handle. I've just looked it up, and Chambers confirms this: a jack-knife is a large clasp knife (oh, thanks, that's really helpful), and a clasp knife is a knife whose blade folds into the handle.

Comments

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

So how did it turn out?

Also, I'd guess that abrinskys knife is legal as long as he doesn't try to take it anywhere...

[lamentables.livejournal.com]

There were no collections last week. I can't work out if that was because no-one put out their bins, or if there's a secret way of knowing which/whether collection will happen.
We have a fortnightly schedule with alternating grey (rubbish) and brown (compostable) bin collections, and no-one ever puts out the wrong bin. I just wait to see what Phil puts out and copy him, and I suspect everyone else does the same...but what if, just once, Phil was wrong? Maybe he's been wrong lots of times, but the consensus dictates the nature of the refuse lorry...?