Long, Dark Winter

It's been quite a while since the last post - almost two whole months. I'm not sure we've been blog-less for this long before, it seems like a bit too much to try and catch up all at once. But then again we haven't been doing whole heck of a lot lately either, so maybe it is possible.

The last two months have blurred together into one long, dreary patch of continually grey skies and the threat of rain. It certainly has been the ugliest winter we've seen here. It hasn't really been cold, just miserable. We've had few nice patches, with sunshine and blue skies, but they've always managed to disappear at about 4:30 on Friday afternoon. As such we haven't really been out on walks or visited new castles and we're running up against a serious bout of cabin fever.

January was busy at work, but we took some time out for a Burns Supper with a group of colleagues from work. It was a really nice mixed group and we had quite a bit of fun through dinner and the first couple of dances. Then, halfway through the third dance, someone wearing stiletto heels stomped on Fiona's foot, breaking the skin and leaving a tremendous bloody bruise. Being the trooper that she is, she finished the dance though.

January also brought us a court date. We've been called as witnesses in a case. Not what we were hoping for, but it might still go away before the case goes before the judge in July.

The long winter had us thinking about a short sunny vacation and Egypt was at the top of our list. As you can imagine, we're pretty glad we never booked. We're still looking for somewhere to stock up on our vitamin D. The Canary Islands are now on the radar. Hopefully the people there are happy with their government.

We've tried to brighten up the dreariness of February with a few dinner parties with friends, which have been fun. We've seen some movies, including the King's Speech and several older ones on TV, that we thought were well worth the time. We finished a nice 1500 piece puzzle in record time. We're loving our Italian classes, and looking ever more forward to our trip to Florence in May. We're doing more reading now - Fiona working her way through Wolf Hall and Pillars of the Earth and me still ploughing through Churchill's History of the English Speaking Peoples.

The crocuses are coming up in our front lawn. On those days when the sun manages to peak through the clouds it even looks kind of pretty. I'm starting feel hopeful for a sunny springtime.