The snow is gone now, but I am becoming
quite attached to having it around and and am
hoping that more will come again soon.

In the meantime, I am trying to get back
to some sort of routine…but only half-heartedly,
as I know that only today is it the last day of
Christmas, and tomorrow is a town day, and
then the weekend is here…so there is really
no possible way to get back to the usual
until next Monday…perfectly sensible,
wouldn’t you agree?

On Monday I did something greatly out
of the ordinary and that was to go to a matinee.
It is rare for a movie to come along that I am
willing to both pay money to see and endure
all the dreadful pre-movie ads…but it was
The King’s Speech, so I gladly did both.

It was very much worth it. I was
moved to tears by the end and glad to hear
the gentle applause throughout the theatre
at it’s conclusion. Of course, I have been rather
taken with Bertie and Elizabeth since I saw
the movie of the same name several years
ago…and there was also Colin Firth. The
only thing I didn’t like was the gloomy cast
to most of the movie (something you see more
and more these days) and the stylized rooms
and sets (more artistically pleasing to some
designer’s vision than to reality, I think).
I clung to any glimpse of sunlight or
firelight and was glad the theatre was
warm since they didn’t serve hot
cups of tea during the showing,
more’s the pity.

We were supposed to go to a lovely
annual Twelfth Night gathering tonight,
but various menfolk in the house are ill…
so instead, we will light a fire and sip
potato soup. I might even be able to convince
everyone to watch one last holiday story.

I just finished my first book of the year…
The Shell Seekers. It is the book that
introduced me to Agas and scrubbed pine
tables when I first read it in 1987. It was a
cosy, easy read when I met it again after all
these years, and I especially liked these
lines from a poem by Louis MacNeise
that I found amongst its pages…

“…Whose nature prefers
trees without leaves
and a fire in the fireplace.”