Snowed in and fed up
Jan. 6th, 2010 10:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shewhomustThis 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.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
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.
*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.
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.
*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.
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no subject
Date: 2010-01-06 10:08 pm (UTC)I think that is also true at Lamentable Towers. Our rubbish/recycling collections are due tomorrow - we'll see how that turns out.
We have a clasp knife that abrinsky has owned for about 30 years. Not entirely sure it's legal...
no subject
Date: 2010-01-06 10:36 pm (UTC)This is exactly what J and I were wondering on Sunday, when we were debating whether to risk driving back to State College or not. Of course we'll never know what might have happened, but I'm very glad that we waited. We're safe and sound now, after all. And when I think of that hill on the Avenue, I really believe that you guys are better off not chancing it. It sounds like there really was no doubt. And no, you don't have to like it.
J still receives announcements from Durham University and it sounds like it's a real miserable mess over there, with the emergency services being strained to the limit to cope with the snow and ice and roads. Amazing, considering that the first winter we were in Durham (2006/7) had no snow at all and the next two years had very little.
As for how to cope with cabin fever, I'm afraid I don't have much advice. What works for me in unexpected adverse situations is to pick a project that I'd been meaning to get to and that can be realistically completed in the time that I expect to have before life gets back to normal. I always have projects of that sort; things like organising bookshelves or clearing out a drawer or inbox or going through my hand-sewing pile to replace buttons and such. Sometimes I add a DVD that I'd been meaning to see.
YMMV, of course. But I find that when I'm done, I feel very satisfied about the stretch of time I was unable to do normal things and am much less grumpy about it all.
no subject
Date: 2010-01-07 09:00 am (UTC)Maybe Chaz can give you a private reading?
no subject
Date: 2010-01-07 09:47 pm (UTC)Also, I'd guess that
no subject
Date: 2010-01-07 09:51 pm (UTC)Part of my problem has been a feeling of being in limbo, as if time isn't passing, everything is on hold for the duration. I'm actually finding it harder to focus on work; I keep succumbing to the charms of LJ, and then wondering where the day has gone.
But things are a bit better today (see next post).
no subject
Date: 2010-01-07 09:52 pm (UTC)And yes, I shall certainly see whather I can persuade Chaz to repeat the performance. No chance of your coming up and sharing it, is there?
no subject
Date: 2010-01-08 12:04 am (UTC)That's exactly it in a nutshell; one wants to do routine tasks and yet one is continually thwarted. It's an exercise in frustration to try to get on with the day as though it's a normal day.
Which is why doing a task that *isn't* part of the normal day (i.e., one that has been put off for too long in lieu of routine stuff) works so well. It's something that could be accomplished when so many other things couldn't. And makes the day feel not wasted but triumphant, like you took full advantage of a dubious situation.
The fact that such things work wonders for me might reveal a bit about me, as might the tasks that don't get done until snow days. But there you are.
no subject
Date: 2010-01-08 10:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-08 11:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-08 02:08 pm (UTC)I've been tackling the website, page by page. I've been re-writing/re-spelling for an American audience and I've been trying to do some SEO on it at the same time. I'm still waiting to have access to the codes that would allow me to put in meta and title tags (my webguy does the stuff that's outside the pages). But I've been doing a lot of re-structuring in the pages themselves, to try to make the pages more readable. It's a huge project.
J has also convinced me to look into business grants and such around here, since officially it'll be a 'new' business. I'm not too optimistic but I'll give it a try. I have nothing to lose but time.
no subject
Date: 2010-01-10 11:41 am (UTC)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...?