Winter!

Proper winter has finally arrived in England.


Over the weekend the warmish wet weather that has been with us more or less constantly since the early autumn has been replaced by clear skies, cold, crisp air, frozen puddles and ponds, and frosty grass.


Love it!  Of course, when there is ice on the road I have to be careful, checking for traffic before pulling into the middle of the road to go around it.  I know the roads very well, but don't want to get too intimate with them  :-)


Most of England also had a dose of snow at the weekend too!  It worked its way south, reaching London and the counties to the north and west of Kent, but we had nothing.


Boo!


We like a bit of snow!


Custard loves snow, and will roll in it, making doggy angels.


Frou Frou hates it, though, as she gets it stuck to the fur around her feet and between her toes.  This does not amuse her, and means that she ends up being carried home, which is not an easy task given that she is rather heavy for a small dog and we still have 2 other dogs on leads!  If we do get some snow here I suspect that there will be 2 walks.  One for Frou Frou and Spot (who is rather attached to his bed that is next to a radiator) and one for Custard.  He likes to get out and about, regardless of the weather!

Circle of Life?

Wow, famous people seem to be dropping like flies this year.

Lemmy was not the greatest singer or musician, but her was the arch-type rocker...


David Bowie needs no introduction.  His massive range of styles means that there can be few people who do not like at least something of his, even if it is only The Laughing Gnome or his Christmas duet with Bing Crosby.


His songs were the background music to my teen years, and I saw him live in the 1980s during the Glass Spider tour, which was amazing.

And the today, we here about the death of Alan Rickman, one of the greatest actors ever, IMO.  From the bad guy in Die Hard to Colonel Brandon in Sense and Sensibility to his wonderful role in Galaxy Quest, he always played the part to the full, tugging at heart strings with his subtle facial expressions.  Just watch this stuff from Galaxy Guest, a dumb spoof of Star Trek that he takes to another level.




A sad year so far!  Let's hope this is the end of it!

New Year is under way....

2016 has been very busy so far, both at home and at work.  Nothing in particular, just busy.  Part of the business at home has been that I now have a table in the bedroom where I can play small games with my Star Wars ships.  I have been able to experiment at odd moments with different combinations of ships and weapons.  Great fun.

We are still looking after Spot, my mum's dog, but on Saturdays I take him to her house for the day.  She is OK in the house, but still lacks the mobility to get out on her own, so this week I took her out in a wheelchair.  We took Spot to the park, where we saw this Mandarin Duck on the pond.

There was only the one, in with all of the other ducks, but he really stood out.  It seems that there are a few thousand of these in the wild in southern England these days.  Would be nice to see some more, and maybe some babies in the future.

Mrs RC has been doing more knitting and crochet.  One of her latest creations is this blanket that she made for my mum.  My mum loves it, and so does Garfield the cat!

The unseasonally warm weather has continued, and Mr Chuffington has failed to hibernate again.  He has not been very active, but he has come out of his bedroom each night to eat half a tin of dog food, and meal worms.  Tonight he was waiting for me to bring his bowl, so I snapped a pic.

I don't think he was very impressed...