Tuesday, 20 April 2010

January 2010. A new year and a new start?

Well. What can we say about the rest of January?

After recovering from our Austrian adventures, we were left with horrible icy snow. And lots of it. The UK came to a grinding halt, with a lack of grit and salt. The footpaths were so slippery that it was an effort just to get to the bus stop. We got pretty tired of it. Here in Cardiff the big problems were the ice the compacted snow became, and the public transport grinding to a halt. Horrid stuff. The UK just can't cope with this sort of weather any more. It was tough for businesses as well. Schools were closed, and some businesses had to close as well.

Dogo Street covered with snow

Pontcanna Field, looking towards Swalec Stadium

Matt in the snow

Matt took a couple of days off at the start of the snow. On the first day he found that kids were playing in the street outside, and someone made a massive snowman right outside our front door.

Why does Mr Snowman have a brick for a hat?

And made snow angels.

One Friday night Steve, at the pub, couldn't get his Jag out of the street. So the lads went and had to give him a push, which ended up with Jay surfing down the street behind the Jag.

Funniest story: Matt was back at work, when he noticed a guy out with a metal detector. Apparently the day before there was a massive snowball fight, and this guy had been in there in the thickest of things. The guy was out there for 2 days searching for something – the gossip was that he was out there searching for his wedding ring. Whoops.

Other than that? Kathy had many tears at work. The problems caused her to shed so many more at home, in the comfort of Matt's shoulder. Work was just truly horrible. It was made bearable by the nice log fire at the pub – which made watching rugby very cosy. Dave cooked chestnuts in the fire, which was fun – and tasty.

We also had some nice weekend walks in the crispy sun – which was better when the ice and snow melted, and finished the month with a pub crawl through Pontcanna.

Matt had organised this at the insistence of people at his work. People who couldn't or wouldn't go to London for the other crawls we'd done. People who pulled out of this crawl at the very last moment. Ggggggggggrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Not Happy Jan. So, we're not doing another one.

Oh, and it was Kathy's birthday. Bright moment in the month for her, which had been very difficult at work. Thank you to Matt for making it special for her.

February's got to be better.

No comments: