When Blood is Nipt, And Ways Be Foul…

Apparently, last week we tempted the weather gods and said that it was either not as bad a winter as everyone had forecast, or we were “getting used to the cold in Glasgow.”

Bwa-hahahahahaha!

Thursday we stood under an overpass and remarked on the disturbingly black and filthy – yet strangely beautiful – icicles hanging there. The forecast called for it to drop to -7°C/19°F last night, and as we added yet another blanket to the bed, we were reminded of the woman our friend Marilyn knows, who pulled her knee out of socket trying to turn over with too heavy of covers on the bed. They were, of course, in Scotland doing graduate work.

---

Winter
by the incomparable and amusing Bard, Shakespeare

WHEN icicles hang by the wall
And Dick the shepherd blows his nail,
And Tom bears logs into the hall,
And milk comes frozen home in pail;
When blood is nipt, and ways be foul,
Then nightly sings the staring owl
                                      Tu-whoo!
Tu-whit! tu-whoo! A merry note!
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

When all around the wind doth blow,
And coughing drowns the parson’s saw,
And birds sit brooding in the snow,
And Marian’s nose looks red and raw;
When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl—
Then nightly sings the staring owl
                                      Tu-whoo!
Tu-whit! tu-whoo! A merry note!
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

---

Bundled up in bed, watching the one channel of morning news we get on our tiny and temperamental TV set, T. remarked how strange it seemed to hear the forecaster keep using such pejorative terms for weather. “She said ‘bad,'” T. objected. “Weather isn’t good or bad, it just is.” D. replied, “Well, there are over a hundred school closures between here and England…”

We have had a little “bad” weather, and the winter blahs have hit. We have so much to be grateful for — a warm house, a new oven so we can have those “roasted crabs” hissing in the bowl (crab apples), and non-slippery shoes — but this is definitely the tough part of the year for us. It’s getting harder for T. to get outside and walk briskly for any length of time. The six months of pneumonia she endured several years ago have left scars on her lungs, and she spends much of her time in the cold dry air, coughing. Not having a car at the moment is kind of a drag, but we are still — STILL! getting to the gym a couple of times a week, with hopes that when this cold eases its iron grip and the rain returns, that we’ll make up for what we’re missing on those reeeeeallly cold mornings.

D. suffered a few days of sore and inflamed eyes from getting snow in them. The ladies at the chemist cheerfully diagnosed conjunctivitis, and he had a few days of drops. We guess it makes sense — snow is made of ice crystals forming around a bit of dust — which the wind blew directly into our faces quite a few times. While T. choked, sputtered, and inhaled snow, D. had the unfortunate experience of getting some in his eyes, and finding them infected the following morning. We’ll certainly be more careful next time.

T. is struggling with her current work-in-progress, and has received worried notes from her editor. D. has learned from his department that all of his requests for funding for conferences this year have to be redone — because he — and all the PhD’s in his department — had been given the previous year’s form, and this apparently confuses the various oversight committees. All of these things have been met with …deep sighs. And shrugs. We’re too “meh” to even get that upset.

On the up-side, we’ve discovered the science fiction/comic book spoof, The Middleman and watch a few Tivo’d episodes every time we need a good laugh. The sun has come out every day for the last two or three, taking the daytime temps to -1°, most of the time. D. has taken time out of his work projects to work on T.’s website, which was a huge (required by her agent) project for her, and academically, D. is feeling more organized and energized as he’s narrowed his focus and is moving more confidently through his reams of reading (several thousand pages down, several thousand to go). All in all, we are well — if a little red-nosed and broody.

---

(And YES, darlings in Zurich and Toronto and Saskatchewan, Alaska and Utah and Minnesota: yes. It is colder where you are. Trust us when we say we know that. We’re just sayin’: it’s cold for us.)

– D & T