It Happens To Us All

It's finally happened. I've turned into my mother, as we all do eventually.

While she was still alive, we'd usually all come together for Christmas, squash into our old house, eat too much, reminisce and enjoy each others company. Since there weren't quite so many of us then, we could all just about fit into the same car and go off in the afternoon for an outing. My mother would sit happily in the passenger's seat, listening to the radio.

Our local radio station had its firm favourites and a short playlist. That year it, like the rest of us,  had been impressed by Titanic. Wherever we went, the blasted song would come on before we'd reached the end of our road and my mother would pipe up , "Who's that singing?".  And everybody would  chorus, "It's Celine Dion, Granny".

The other day I was sitting in the hairdresser's, trying to remain positive about my fringe, when  there was something about the song on the radio …  "Who's that singing?".

Yes of course,  it was Celine Dion and her new song, whatever it's called…….

It Hasn't Snowed All Day

No, it hasn't snowed once today. Had it not been freezing, I would have drunk my coffee on the balcony.  Yesterday we only had a lot of wet white stuff that melted on its way down, at about knee height . The crocus are waking up in the park. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Winter even makes getting dressed in the morning rather boring . Hugely heavy thick green jumper or hugely heavy thick grey jumper? ( Am I the only person left, old enough to remember when sweaters came in a wide variety of colours every year? When we didn't all look as though we'd Xeroxed ourselves?)

 Last week it snowed every day and I spent most of it under a blanket, reading a pile of paper backs. I can really recommend  'The Watchmaker from Filigree Street', 'Half-Sick of Shadows'  and  'Moon over Soho', having thoroughly enjoyed them all, especially the first.

But now I'm all magicked out, I've mooned over a huge pile of American museum catalogues, made a variety of vegetable soups and have started to make myself bacon sandwiches again ( definitely frowned on by the cholesterol police ) so I'd better have my hair cut and go for a Day Out. The Femmes Fatales exhibition in Den Haag sounds good … the Dior exhibition in London sounds good, too, but unfortunately Days Out can only really last 24 hours in the real world.  Never mind, it's Blood Orange time again and three different people today assured me that the snow's finished for this year so it's onwards and upwards. ?? 

Smitonius kindly emailed me a shot of her baking and I thought  I'd share it with you to spread the cheer. If I've been overoptimistic and it snows again tomorrow I'll make some muffins and eat them all before the day's out … after another bacon sandwich.