Snow?

Usually when the Met Office predicts snow here we get rain. We may get snow here tonight or tomorrow, but I'll believe it when I see it!

New Zealand Blog

My wife was cleaning a shelf and came across a photo album of our 2009 trip to New Zealand. It is amazing what you forget. Luckily, we did a blog and can look back and recall the visit.

If you get a chance, do go. At every turn it is beautiful and the people are warm and welcoming. It is NOT like the UK. Yes, the people speak English and lots of the birds in towns are English ones, but the wild places are not the same, with wild tree ferns and many trees quite different. 4 million people instead of more than 60 million helps!

See http://roglap.blogspot.co.uk/

Spring around the corner?

At least both morning and evenings are getting lighter now. Although evenings started to get lighter from mid-December, mornings only started to get lighter this week.

Things growing are later than last season when some daffodils were out in late November. This winter it has been colder and there are only a few snowdrops out so far.

Spring is coming, but it will be some weeks yet.

Different roads

As I get older, I must think about things more. Often I wonder what life would have been like had I taken a different fork in the road: gone to a different university, done that PhD, taken a different job, not had children, married someone else, taken the job offer in California and so on. I expect everyone wonders this sort of thing. In a multiverse, maybe we do follow all possibilities but we are not aware of them. I often wonder.

See http://www.bartleby.com/119/1.html .

Plymouth Argyle

Well, my old local football team Plymouth Argyle (League 2) held Liverpool to a 0:0 draw in the FA cup match today. This earns them a replay (and money) in Plymouth.

Dreary January

January is an odd month. Kids have gone back to school, the post is quiet, nights are still long and everywhere feels "dead".

By the end of the month things have already started to change with first signs of new life in the garden, days getting longer and the hope of spring not too far away. January always seems a long, dark, dreary month.

By contrast, February flies!

Panto

It is a UK tradition to go to a pantomime with children at Christmastime. Pantos are usually daft with the lead woman played by a man, with lots of ad libs and jokes. We went to Aladdin in Ely Maltings as we did last Christmas (different panto theme). We went a few days after Christmas and everyone enjoyed it.

Had we gone in Cambridge, it would have been much more expensive. The panto runs until next week. Great family fun.

See https://thelittleboxoffice.com/kdtheatre .