jadesfire: Bright yellow flower (Default)
Well, that was a bit too much like hard work. It took me an hour and a half to do the 2.5 miles from home to work this morning. Every bus seemed to be full, so I waited half an hour there (yes, I do have some feeling in my toes again now, thanks for asking), then it took half an hour down the main road, which didn't seem to have been gritted since Monday. Thanks to the continual snowfall/slush/freezing cycle, it was covered in an inch or so of ice, so there was much slipping and wheelspin pretty much everywhere. Even the bus took a dive to the left every time it stopped, freaking the driver out a little, not to mention the rest of us.

Knitters, I'm not sure about making it to Blackwell's at lunchtime. Due to my klutziness/carefulness, it's taking me forever to walk places, and as one of the few members of staff here, I don't really feel I can extend my lunchbreak. Also, lind is off ill and B is still fighting the train network. Maybe next week, once it's melted.

Speaking of which, I don't mind the snow so much, it's the thaw that's starting to worry me. Last February when all the snow melted, the river rose to within an inch of the bottom of our window. And there wasn't as much snow then as there is now.

*gulp*

This is not going to help my attempts to wean myself off Rightmove, is it?




Moving onto happier thoughts, did I mention that I have an iPod Touch? Once or twice, maybe? I'm sorta kinda in love with it right now, but I have two questions for more experienced users:

#1. What free/cheap apps should I get? I already have Stanza and Echofon and a Sudoku game. Any other must haves?

#2. Is there any way to get the damn thing to remember what I was listening to before I turned it off? Several of my audiobooks are just albums (ie MP3 not M4b) so it won't remember which track I was listening to, and the 'recently played' is no help at all. My Creative used to remember and start up where I left off. Is there any way to make the Touch do that, or am I just going to have to improve my memory skills?




Since I can't live without a desk diary, I went out and got myself a half-price Moleskin one yesterday. It is black and leather and absolutely gorgeous. You didn't need to know that, but it's making me happy and I felt the need to share.

Anything to take my mind off the amount of snow still falling outside...
jadesfire: Bright yellow flower (Text - Procrastination Central)
So when I got home tonight, I should have gone straight inside. It was cold, kind of dark (although the moon was bright) and I had dinner to make.

ExpandSo can you guess what I did? Can you? )
jadesfire: Bright yellow flower (CM - Reid - good time for coffee)
Today is a MOAR SNOW OH GOOD GRIEF day, and everything is still drenched in white out there. I too was drenched when I got to work, thanks to a two and a half mile walk from home. The latest pictures are all under the cut, and show just how thickly it was coming down here.

ExpandAll this way )

In other news, you know how it can be hard to find really good Genfic when you need it? Criminal Minds fandom, I'm looking at you in particular, but Torchwood, you've got nothing to be proud of. Anyway, apparently someone else feels the same, because prompts are now being taken for a Gen battle, along the lines of the regular Porm battles. Woot! Prompts are open until the 11th, posting opens on the 14th and the battle closes on the 28th. Loads of time!

Rules are here, leave prompts here and do give it a shout on your journal for any Genficcers. And if you don't normally write Gen, why not give it a go? The more fandoms, the merrier!
jadesfire: Bright yellow flower (CM - animated - so life like)
Good grief, it's treacherous out there. Hundreds of feet have pounded the snow to the consistency of extra-slippery ice, with the added bonus of getting soaked if you trip. With my black-belt in klutziness, I had to be extra careful getting round corners.

Oh, and it turns out my boots aren't completely waterproof. Lovely.

Anyhoo, it's all starting to melt now, which adds grey slush into the equation, not to mention all the droplets falling from the trees. So I thought I'd post these final pictures of our snowman. (I'm the one in blue). The poor thing is on a slow nose dive towards the tarmac now, so I'm glad we got these pictures right away!

ExpandHe looked happy once... )
jadesfire: Bright yellow flower (Cute - Penguins!)
Not only did it snow overnight, but it's still snowing here, and not the light sleet that we usually get. Oh no. These are huge flakes, settling on the four or so inches that we already had, turning the whoel world white. Oxford was strangely quiet this morning, a combination of the muffling effects of snow and the lack of cars on the road. I did see one poor soul trying to do a three point turn on Hollywell Street and failing miserably because the car kept sliding sideways.

Up where we are, everything really did have a blanket of 'deep and crisp and even' snow on it, which was baffling the ducks no end. There's something about being the first person to walk through a thick layer of snow, although I really wished I'd had some wellington boots to stop the bottoms of my trousers getting so wet.

Work's shutting early, everyone's looking out at the snow with expressions somewhere between horror and wonder, and we built a snowman in the carpark after having a brief snowball fight with the porters.

Could be worse.

ExpandPlus, I took some pictures )