Three reasons why hot weather is hateful

1. You have to water your garden every evening or watch your newly grassed patches of lawn and dianthus go brown and die.

2. The twice-weekly runs become even harder and sweatier.

3. Your neighbours start having meat-laden BBQs -- and the chicken wings and sausages smell SO good!

Will these blue skies and this oppressive sunshine never end?

(I have a feeling I wrote a post about hating hot weather before, but with 950 posts to go through, I couldn't be bothered searching for it. Apologies if anyone feels like they've been ripped off.)

It's a good job I don't have to make important decisions every day

6.30 a.m.: PJ announces he is awake, it's not raining, and he's off to the gym.
6.40 a.m.: PJ leaves the house.
6.50 a.m.: Rain starts beating against the bedroom window. Doh!

8.25 a.m.: I stand by the window, trying to guess whether it will rain in the next 25 minutes.
8.26 a.m.: Grey clouds. It probably will. I'm wearing a skirt. Decision time. Do I cycle in wearing the skirt and get wet when it starts raining or do I put my waterproofs on, put my skirt in my bag and change at work? The latter option is the sensible one, but I will attract strange looks from passers-by, given that it's not actually raining.
8.35 a.m.: Still torn. Finally, I decide that I just don't care that much about what strangers think, but I do want to get to work.
8.40 a.m.: Damn. First set of strange looks. I DO care what strangers think.
8.41 a.m.: Is that a patch of blue sky?
8.42 a.m.: Pray for it to rain. Wish strangers would stop giving me odd looks. What's wrong with being prepared? The British Empire was built on this motto!
8.43 a.m.: Hah! It has started raining. I am vindicated! Bet you wish you were wearing your waterproofs now, Cloggies!
8.44 a.m.: That's enough rain to prove a point. Am now feeling cold and damp and miserable.
8.59 a.m.: Arrive at work, soaked. Drip my way into the office and change. In my calendar, mark off another day until I can walk upstairs to work.

The lack of big problems in my life is clearly having a detrimental effect on my decision-making skills.

Road works on the M3

Guess I'd better get used to them. After all, I envisage doing the run up to Heathrow once a month or more, unless I can persuade PJ to use a train/bus combo. It was raining as we left our hotel in Winchester, it was raining more heavily as we hit the M3 just five minutes later, it slowed to a depressing drizzle as we hit the long queues of traffic between junctions 4a and 3, and it was raining as we dropped off the hire car. It rained as my flight to Amsterdam sat on the tarmac, watching PJ's flight (probably) to San Francisco pull away from its stand. It was raining as we came in to land at Schiphol, it was raining when I got off the train at Centraal, and it rained as I walked home. Four hours later, it rained as I cycled to yoga, and it was still raining 90 minutes later when I cycled home. Inevitably, it will be raining at 8.30 tomorrow morning when I set off for work.

I can't wait until I'm a home worker. Then, rain will not bother me. (Except on Wednesdays, when I walk to Winchester railway station to get the train to London.) Hurrah!

Frosty the Snow-Dumpling

The much-heralded snow arrived at lunchtime. In fact, it had been so heralded that the rail service starting delaying trains before it arrived -- now that's customer service! Just don't tell any of the incompentent private companies that make up British Rail; they'd love to do that.



Considerably heavier than the light shower we had earlier in the week, the snow started coming down thick and fast at about midday, about the time we'd planned to cycle over to WTC for lunch at Wagamama's, followed by an appointment in one of the buildings there. We held off on lunch, trying to convince ourselves with eternal British optimism that it was brightening up, but at 1.30 we had no choice but to head out into the snow. Ignoring the BBC's advice to take a spade (although a flask of hot tea would have been fantastic), we pedalled slowly over to WTC -- a journey that normally takes 10 minutes, but today took 25. This was, it must be said, also to do with the fact that the road we needed to turn onto was closed off by building works, so we had to do a huge loop around the complex -- no fun in driving snow and on slippery bike paths. However, we arrived safely, to be greeted somewhat incredulously. "You cycled in this weather!?!" Yep, foolhardy and proud of it.

After the meeting, PJ slyly slipped off to Schiphol in a taxi to wait out the inevitable delays on his flight to Copenhagen. I had to cycle the 10km back home, the snow now replaced with heavy, horizontal sleet, which stung my face and made it tricky to see where I was going. Please keep your fingers crossed that it doesn't freeze tonight; slush is bad, but ice is worse.

Blizzards!

Not really, although according to the UK weather forecasts, this is what a blizzard looks like.



Two inches of snow -- enough to cause TRAFFIC CHAOS! across the UK and prompt warnings to take a flask of tea, a blanket, and a spade with you on long journeys, presumably to dig yourself out of those deadly two-inch snowdrifts. I think the rest of Europe must snigger at us behind our backs.



The observant ones among you will notice that this isn't, in fact, the UK; it's the view from my window at work. I'm going to miss it.

Told you

I made a dash for home mid-afternoon, picking a relatively calm 30-minute window in which to cycle home. It was definitely easier than cycling in this morning, the strong winds pushing me home with a minimum of effort. I had to dodge the overturned bikes, roof terrace furniture that had come crashing to earth, and the muppet drivers who saw this as a great opportunity to go the wrong way down one-way streets -- as well as lots of bits of tree. And then I saw this. And had to stop to get a picture.



Yet another day on which I'm glad I live between brick walls, rather than on a houseboat.

Another windy day in Amsterdam

Cycling in to the office despite the dreadful weather this morning, PJ and I were smugly agreeing that we'd only not cycled in on days when there was several inches of snow on the ground -- or our bikes were defunct/stolen. However, I think I might need to amend this. The weather services here are advising people not to cycle, and having witnessed a huge piece of corrugated siding get torn off the tram shed opposite and roof tiles plummeting to the ground from a nearby apartment building, I might just take their advice.

Ah. Update. PJ just called to say there's a huge tree down across the Overoom, which has snapped several tram cables. Maybe I'll chance it on my bike after all!

Enter three witches

Fair is foul, and foul is fair:
Hover through the fog and filthy air.

Disgusting weather again today; at this point, I'd prefer cycling to work over ice than battling the wind and rain down the Kinkerstraat. The planes are coming into Schiphol very low over our building, emerging from the swirling clouds a couple of hundred feet away with their fog lights on. It's slightly unnerving watching them battle the winds, tilting to one side in the event of a sudden, strong gust. Glad I'm inside and not up there.

Wet wet wet

I got drenched three times before 9 a.m. today -- quite an achievement, albeit not six impossible things before breakfast. And only one of those soakings could be called voluntary. The cycle ride to the gym at 7.35 was grim, dark, and wet -- at one point, I actually cursed out loud, scaring the local taxi drivers huddled smugly inside their cars. The swimming pool was very wet, but blissfully quiet. Worst by far was the short ride from the gym to the office -- in a torrential downpour. I kept comforting myself by promising that this time next year I'd use a car to get to the gym. Much to my surprise, it didn't rain on the way home. I would be thankful for small mercies, but the enormous spot growing painfully just under my chin is making me far too grumpy for that.

Roll on 2007.

Can write

Yesterday afternoon's productivity was destroyed by the weather. Between 3.30 and 4, Bill and I sat in our 7th floor eerie, gazing out of the windows at the most amazing display of meterological activity. Thick, evil, low-hanging black clouds scudded in the east, headed out over central Amsterdam, and then circled round to dump buckets of rain over the city. The lights in the tram depot across the Schinkel came on, trees bowed over, and the wind drove waves up the canal. All the seagulls scarpared as thunder and lightning -- very, very frightening -- played across the nearby sky. As the dark clouds swirled around the Philips Tower in the east, the sun illuminated the dense clouds in the west, casting a sulpherous glow in the sky and lighting up the houses across from us. A huge, double rainbow appeared, followed by a swathe of blue sky in the west draped with thick pink clouds. Most bizarre and most entertaining -- better than television!

Meditation rage

There's always one. She -- it's always a she -- comes into class at the very last minute sets out an array of items: a bottle of water, a towel, a packet of tissues, various sweaters. She is clearly going to be trouble, preferring to achieve nirvana through accessorizing than through calm thoughts. And she was. Throughout today's 21/2 hour meditation class, she loudly swigged water, coughed, blew her nose, and generally fidgeted. Instead of achieving one-ness with the space around me, I found my fingers clenching against my thighs, my mind racing with murderous thoughts -- and what I'd blog about once I got home.

The cycle ride home didn't help my mood. This is what happens when you don't take a hat or waterproof trousers with you on every journey.



I got soaked. Which meant I couldn't face heading out again today to spend several hours with screaming rugrats -- sorry, Bill and Beth! I'll make up for it over the holidays; promise.

My bike saddle has PMT

Well, it was retaining water this morning during the torrential downpour that occured on our way to the gym. As a result, I had a soggy arse by the time I got to work. Not a great way to start the week.