Warmest January since records began

Wow, this morning I heard on the news that the average weather in January should be between 5 and 9 degrees. However, this month we have been experiencing temperatures up to 14 degrees and apparently, overall that is the warmest January since records began (whenever that was?).

It appears that last year's freak weather conditions are continuing. The daffodils are coming up in the garden and the grass and weeds have continued to grow all winter. We had a few frosty nights just before Christmas but nothing since.

I suppose we should be saddened by all this as it just proves that the Global Warming scares are very real. There are an awful lot of people in Britain that have already felt the bad effects of the warming of the ice caps. Large parts of the Midlands has just had their houses flooded for the third time in 8 months.

Much as I do love the winter conditions around Christmas time, I am secretly pleased that we haven't had any snow and all the obligatory chaos it brings. It isn't really worth the hassle on the roads for just a couple of inches which melt away after a few hours anyway. There are some advantages to the British weather after all.

Rumpleteazer's trip

This weekend we were cat sitting again. We are soon doing it for a whole fourtnight so Stan and Anna have said that I can bring my cat Rumpleteazer with me. I decided to bring her this weekend, just for the one night, so that she can meet the cats and get the feel of the place. Teazer is a seasoned traveller as she always used to come camping with me.


I think she could smell the dog because at first she spent several hours skulking behind the TV but eventually she ventured out to inspect the place. Stan's cats were not very friendly towards her but that was only to be expected. She was intruding on their space. Jake did a lot of growling and Dizzy just hissed at her but at least there was no dog.


By tea time they sorted out in which order they were eating and surprise, surprise it was Jake first, then Dizzy and Teazer got what was left over. Dizzy went to sleep in the kitchen whilst Jake and Teazer curled up on the sofas (one each, not together).


When I came down in the morning, I discovered that Teazer had been desperate for the toilet in the night but unable to recognise where it was despite of me showing her. She may have just forgotten or got disorientated, but yes there was a massive puddle on the floor, poor thing.


The rest of the day went well. I shoved her into the catlitter a couple of times and there were no more accidents. The cats seemed to tolerate each other even though they weren't exactly friends. We'll just have to see what happens when she stays for a fourtnight.

Sun Holidays

Last week the Sun news paper ran tokens for the £9.50 pp holidays every day. We had to collect 7 different tokens and then pick five different resorts and five different dates for a Monday to Friday break. Even though it's £9.50 per person, the minimum payment is for groups of four.

Helen has never been to the Lakes so we thought that would be our obvious choice to go. There were no resorts exactly in the Lake District but we found three that were quite near and then picked two others in North Wales.

We decided to choose two dates in April, one in May and two in September. We are hoping that because these dates are in relatively low season, we would have better chance in getting something. Apparently most people choose May and June (I wonder why?????!)

It has been a while since I've been on one of these holidays, as they are always demanding payment with a cheque. I don't deal with cheques and I don't believe it is safe to send any kind of payment via Royal Mail these days. In fact I would rather avoid sending anything with them. On this occaison I was talked into giving them the benefit of doubt.

However, It would be really nice to go away for nearly a week for just £38. Lets face it, it would be nice to just go away, full stop. Fingers crossed now that we manage to get something. I'll keep you posted.

Swimming

Last night Helen and I decided to go swimming. It sounded like a great idea even though neither of us have been swimming for years. It shocked me how expensive it was; £6.40 between us. We thought it was around £2 each. Maybe it shows how long it has been since we last went :-)

It didn't look very reassuring to arrive at the pool, only to find the car park almost full. We eventually found a space and trotted in. Changing didn't take long as we both had already got our cozies on. Helen used the freezing cold showers by the entrance to the pool but I had to que up for the only two proper showers which were both occupied by three kids, who were in no hurry whatsoever, before I could get in the pool.

The pool water seemed relatively pleasant after standing around waiting for the showers. It was just the right temperature for swimming in but perhaps a little cool for standing about in. I did a few brisk lengths and realised that I was not as fit as I would have liked to be as I was not able to swim the way I used to do.

We spent an hour partly swimming and partly floating about and talking. Eventually I had done more swimming than I could take so I was absolutely knackered. Then we were all asked to come out for a little while because they were doing a "change over" whatever that meant.

We didn't stop around to see what was going on as we were frozen so the warm showers were far more appealling especially as they were vacant. We grabbed them whilst we could and decided to leave. A cup of hot chocolate at McDonalds seemed very inviting especially as it was only around the corner from the baths.

To our disappointment the chocolate machine was broken so we had to make do with a cup of coffee and tea. It amused me that we had been in the pool and used up X amount of calories but as soon as we got out we were eating a large box of fries. Still, it could have been worse. We could have just eaten the fries and not bothered with the swimming.

All in all, it still turned out to be a very pleasant evening.

What a funny week

Yes, I went back to work on Wednesday, which ofcourse felt like a Monday. It's now Friday but to me it feels like a Wednedsay. Does anyone actually follow this?

Anyway, The last few days I had to try to cram in over a week's worth of tasks in order to catch up from the holidays. If I had even a half decent pc at work it would have probably been possible.

However, according to the IT company, my PC belongs in a museum and it is toatally inadequate to be used on the network. As I am spending majority time just waiting for the pc to stop doing whatever it's doing, I have not been able to complete those.

Yesterday we were promised a small amount of snow which would have been our first for the season. There were very mixed feelings about it but as it was it never actually happened. It went down to minus 1 degree but then it warmed up again without any snow showing.

This weekend it's time to take down the decorations for another year and in my case; I'm hoping it's the last time that I see them in this house. Hopefully I will be in my new house before too long. Keep you posted!

Happy New Year!

I spent a quiet New Year's Eve, in Longton (of all places), with Helen and we had a wonderful time. We watched an absolutely brilliant Take That concert live and had a nice Chinese meal and a couple of bottles of wine to go with it.

New Years Day was a relaxing day as I spent most of the day working on the laptop. I had a webcam for Christmas so I tried to set it up but I couldn't get it to work, so in the end I uninstalled it and re-installed. So far I did get the impression that it is working but I'm not hundred percent sure until I try it.

First day back at work was dreadful. I had developed a bad sleeping routine whilst I was off so I didn't sleep much and was not at all ready for the clock to go off this morning. Luckily the traffic was kind for a change, but when I got to work there was an enormous pile of invoices and gas safety certificates waiting for me. Nice? -NOT!