My Own Little World

The scene from my kitchen window. On the right are some tall trees that stayed upright under the snow. In the centre are the fronts of shrubs that I freed yesterday. This should be a much higher, wider thicket, but the sides and back are still buried. Below them is the bale of straw I placed to protect my (buried) miniature bulb set. The messy bunch of sticks was a 1.8 metre clump of fennel seed heads.

A mild nor’wester prompted me to hang out my washing. I should have ignored it. The snow has developed a crust that almost holds my weight. Walking was difficult and treacherous. Some steps were on top. Others I suddenly dropped 15-20 cm, usually heel first, which was a shock to my knees and tarsal tunnel buggered heels. I couldn’t take a step without my walking stick, so I couldn’t carry much. It took me the best part of an hour to get two loads out and I was exhausted. A few years ago I would have regarded this as fun.

Yesterday I had to come to terms with the fact that the fridge part of my big fridge-freezer was not going to cool down after the power came back on. Fortunately I held onto the wee fridge-freezer I had before I bought this monster secondhand, but the contents of the big one don’t fit. I’ll have to go to Christchurch to buy a new one. With my car buried in the snow and several metres of deep, frozen snow between it and the gate, that could be a while.