Blowing a Blizzard

In an attempt to be nice to the birdies during this bleak, blizzardy weather, I managed to grate my thumb on the grater whilst grating some bread. It still hasn't stopped bleeding, so now I'm worried I've got some kind of clotting disorder as I'm well past the bleeding time for this kind of scrape. Actually, it reminds me of that moment in one of the Doctor in the House films when Sir Lancelet Spratt says to a medical student, 'You, boy. What's the bleeding time?' to wit the student replies, 'Five past eleven, Sir Lancelot,' or some such witty malarkey.

Normally I wouldn't grate bread. I'd just do a finger crumble or a whizz in the blender, but 1) the blender jug is the fridge as I've just cooked and squished up the last if this year's tomatoes into passata, and 2) the bread I used was the leftover of a particularly full-bodied and chewy wholemeal soda bread I made at the weekend which even my fingers were having trouble crumbling. My fault - I think I added too much black treacle just to finish up the tin, and the bread came out more biscuity.

Anyway, school is closed because we are breeding a generation of wimps who can't get to school for whatever pathetic reason they deem fit to offer, and I find myself with an unexpected day at home. This is okay, because it means I can get on with odds and sods of stuff and sit in the warm listening to the county chaos unfolding on local radio. It's bitter outside - wind, snow, wind, ice, wind, brrrrrrrrrrrrr...you get the idea. Andy has gone to work because he is good like that and has a high sense of moral duty. The journey was twice as long as usual, but he texted that he'd arrived safely and was now on gritting duty. Did he mean 'gritting'? Yes, I'm sure he did...

So, I've passata-ed, I've baked. I've wrapped up Christmas presents, I've tried to entice the hens from their pod. They're staying put, so I've concocted a complicated food 'n' water station which means they can eat and drink without having to step outside their cosy little house. But if the weather continues in this blizzardy vein, I shall have to de-camp them to the greenhouse just so they can stretch their legs properly.

'We should have a small-holding with a barn,' I said to Andy. 'A barn would be ideal for chickens in this blizzardy kind of weather.'

And then we sighed at the impossible dream...

Meanwhile, the cats are squishing up together on the sofa, or squishing up against me which is impeding elbow room for typing. One of them has wind; I think it might be Pandora. Phoebe is squished up in an empty shoe box. Radio Kent is awash with people moaning about the appalling train services and the appalling council gritting services. It is also awash with people offering help to vulnerable people - for example there is an eleven year old girl talking at the moment offering to help elderly people near to where she lives by clearing paths and driveways or taking them dinners of stew that she and her mum have been cooking all morning. Awwwww.......

I am glad I am at home. I have knitting and sewing and telly watching planned for this afternoon. It's cold, it's Winter, it's Advent. I can feel 'A Muppet Christmas Carol' coming on.

It's all good.