Still!

In Embra this morning the fields were crisp and white with snow. Crows sat on fences with their feathers all fluffed up, looking fat and bolshy; and there were cracks in the grey revealing blue sky. Everything sparkled.

Here in Kirkcaldy we get skies the colour of the water used for cleaning the brush when painting monsters for Warhammer;
and ducks huddling sullenly on the rocks of the harbour wall, glaring with persecuted reproach at anyone who gets close enough to make them feel they have to get back in the water.

Cycle commuting this morning I was in full-length bibshorts, X-Wear base layer, gilet, Gore Tex, waterproof gloves, overshoes and had my polar buff up round my face all ninja-style. I’ve been wearing a lid for the last couple of days as well because the roads round Riccarton are skitey. I was perfectly toasty in that lot, but it takes so long to get dressed!

I just wish it would get properly cold and frozen so I could put the ice tyres on Max. It’s not necessary for the little bit of frozen road between the Park & Ride and the office, though.

My new Global G-21 16cm boning knife is utterly fantastic. But dear gods treat it with respect. At one point there I wasn’t sure whether the blood on my fingers was from the chicky-bok I was butchering or I’d cut off something of mine without noticing. It makes the process of turning whole dead chickens into bits of dead chickens a real joy, as well as appealing to the part of me that would be base jumping and free climbing if I hadn’t caused so much damage to my body falling off mountains already.

That baby is most definitely living in its box until I get a special knife house that will keep the blade away from unsuspecting fingers. It’s the sort of utensil one washes and dries — very carefully — after each use just so one can put it away. Life is safer like that.

I haven’t done this yet.

Cool stuff I got for Christmas:

• The soundtrack album for We ♥ Katamari (thanks Frood!)
• A digital photo frame with a memory card containing pictures of that fab holiday we had on Jura years ago (thanks, bro!)
• FOUR Global knives, bringing the number of things in my kitchen with which I could easily sever a finger to a beautiful half dozen. Wow! (thanks Mum and Dad!)
• Assorted books and various other bits and pieces, all of which were groovy.

My brother found this book for Frood called Pets With Tourettes. It’s just the sort of thing that Chuff and Bags would like, Munky.

The thing with Scotland is that we have a maritime climate and we’re at the north end of a fairly small island nestling off the coast of a pretty enormous landmass. What this means is that amongst our many imports we include weather.

Today’s weather has been imported from Siberia (I’m serious) and thus it started snowing 15 minutes ago. As I am currently carless I commuted by bike today. Unfortunately, being unaware of the impending blizzard, I rode Shackleton, who is currently wearing Conti GP4000s in 700x25c. If I’d known, obviously I’d have fitted the Nokians to Max.

I have already declared that if the snow gets much worse I shall go home rather than be stuck here. There’s not much I can do today anyway.

Get worse, snow!

As Frood is a ‘new man’ in the sense that he is more than passing familiar with such concepts as sharing of chores, and can talk about girl problems without blushing, I was perfectly comfortable adding tampons to the shopping list last time it was his turn to shop. I showed him the near-empty box I possessed so he would know which ones I wanted and off he went.

What he came back with was a box of these.

Now it wasn’t his fault. Because, I mean, who would think that anyone would come up with an idea quite as ridiculous as perfumed tampons? I don’t understand for the life of me what good they would do. Who’s going to smell them? And how? Is this some niche fetish that is beyond even my extensive experience? Surely you’d need to stick a tube up there and sniff that, unless you had yourself a lady so accomodating that the tampon would have a job staying up there in the first place.

The sheer practical ludicrousness is only part of it. As eny gurl kno, one’s intimate areas should not be subjected to scents and perfumes for an imbalance of the delicate flora will result, and the only possible outcome of that is raging thrush and the need for copious amounts of yoghurt.

And that’s before we get to the sheer insult of thinking that such a thing would be a good idea in the first place.

FFS. Perfumed tampons. The mind boggles.

And that’s me with my entry in for the East Fife Tri already. And, of course, I’m supposed to be doing the New Year’s Day again. Truth be told I am not feeling super-arsed about the New Year’s, mostly because the weather is so utterly foul.

We’ll see how it is closer to the time.

I may well be hitting the Wintermarket with the editor of City Cycling, so if anyone wants to say hello, you know what to do. I’m riding Shackleton at the moment, and besides replacing the silver Opticubes with black ones (not by choice) he hasn’t changed. So if you see a girlie (might be hard to tell through all the layers) with a Surly Tuggnutz blinged Pompino and a set of Oakley Mag M-Frames (very rare!): it’s me. Come say hi. I haven’t got the black eye in today, I’m afraid.

Why is it that I always forget that when the weather turns cold enough to put frost on the cars, it means my eye is going to freeze in my face?

It happens every year and yet it always takes me by surprise.

Why is that guy looking at me funny? Oh, yeah. It’s cold. Now I remember. My eye has frozen in my face again.

I’m contemplating heading into town after work tomorrow because… bike lights… blah… new inner tubes… blah… lava lamps… blah… I want to.

I finish around half three and it takes me about 30 minutes to get into town. Shopping will take no more than 2 hours because That Is The Law, so is there going to be anyone around after five to sixish who fancies a coffee somewhere while I wait for Frood to finish work?