Hibernation

Snow is tiring.  I’ve started work later than normal, each day this week, and left work at least two hours earlier than usual, and so, arithmetically considered, have several hours in hand.  However, the week seems to have lasted for ever, and, now, although it’s only 7 pm, I’m sleepy enough to consider giving up on the rest of the day and going to bed.  Is this just because snow makes everything just that little bit more demanding? I wear more clothes and significantly heavier boots; then, when dressing to go outside don an extra layer of almost everything and as a result am hefting around a great weight of woollies.  Since the snow is deep, and crisp but uneven, I dance about to avoid slipping: dancing on snow in heavy (but oh so warm) boots is as good as a workout with ankle weights.  There’s more walking each day too  - driving isn’t pleasant - and, since being impunctual is perfectly acceptable, given the weather, I walk distances which aren’t really feasible even in the best of conditions. Then too, Millie needs longer walks because it’s dark early, so she doesn't get to run off the lead in the park in the evening.  So I walk as far as she does (i.e. twice as far as usual).  In short, life with snow is akin to a stint on a health farm. 

(Does anyone else refer to health farms, or does that put me in the same category as those who still listen to the Home Service on the wireless? (On which, sort of: I mentioned owing a portable typewriter recently and only later realised that  that was probably seen by my (young) colleagues in the same light as once owning an black and white television (which I haven’t), or a car with a hand crank (which I have had, and consequently never ever had to call out the AA for a flat battery during the cold weather, leaving me now wishing that hand cranks still came as part of the basic car package).)  

So tonight , after yet another tango across the snow on the end of the doglead, I shall turn into a tortoise; my flat will become a box of hay; and with luck, when I next wake up it’ll be the end of March.