It’s cold here. Everest came this morning and replaced all but one of the upstairs windows. It was shocking both how quickly they managed to lever out what we had previously thought of as fairly secure frames, and how quickly the cold rushed in to fill the void.

Last week, you see, was all hot and summery. I even dug out my thin coat on Thursday or Friday - I forget which, now - and looked forward to a weekend of pretending winter was over. Today, though, at the start of a full week of periodical windowlessness, it’s all turned sour. Rain, thunder, snow. Yes, snow. Actual proper snow that falls as little white lumps and then slides down the slope of your roof.

That’s not the worst of it, though: every room they’ve been in sports not only a nice new window, but also a thick covering of gritty dust. I expected a light scattering, sure, but not the beach-like dunes that have piled up on my desk, got into my keyboard, and all but obscured the screen on my radio. I’ve not yet dared to peel back my duvet, but I suspect that the terrain under there would be ripe for Saharan endurance training.

It didn’t make for a particularly conducive working environment this morning, so I was glad to be heading for the office come half ten.

Anyhow, they’re now gone for the day and won’t be back until morning, and for the time being the heating is throbbing away all around us.

It’ll be nice when it’s all finished.

The weekend was fun. To the far reaches of Suffolk to see Rich’s family on Saturday, and walk along the water’s edge, photographing the ducks at Oulton Broad, which was just as pleasant as its name makes it sound (and indeed all the names around there, my particular favourite being Beccles, which narrowly beats Kessingland and Bungay).

It was sunny, but even then the wind was getting up and coats were more a necessity than a luxury. It eventually forced us to retreat inside, where we played Scrabble. I won for a change.

Yesterday - Sunday - we came back to Essex, for games and chatter and far too much food at home (particularly nice home-made Bakewells - above - although I didn’t discover that until I finally had one tonight, 24 hours late). Sal and Dan were over, and she’s looking larger than ever, now that it’s less than a month until she becomes a mum (and I become an uncle). Between us, the next four weeks are shaping up to be very busy, so it was nice to have one last weekend all together, before everything changes for good (and for the good, really). I’m still trying to convince her that Oscar won’t get on with the baby, and so should come and live with me.

Anyhow, we played more games. Cards, this time, and I think I came about second, although to be honest I really can’t remember. All I do remember is how much fun we all had, as we do when we play games.

We stayed in, wrapped up warm, and only ventured out briefly to feed carrots to the horses and say goodbye to Freddie, who’s so old, blind and injured that he’ll be recycled in the glue factory before the end of the week.

Here he is, saying farewell (on the right), blissfully unaware that by Friday he could be part of an envelope.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 19th, 2007 at 7:59 pm and is filed under Journal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.