It hasn’t half been cold – though not as cold as it was on Monday morning. Mercifully. But cold enough.

Yesterday, as we were driving from Chesterfield to Sheffield, everything was covered in white. It looked as though someone had gone around and dusted each tree, shrub, piece of grass in very feathery snow. It wasn’t snow – it was rime and it was very, very beautiful. Absolutely everything was white. Except, fortunately, the road, which had been gritted and was ice free.

I have been reading a book. If you can lay your hands on it, you should read it too. It appealed hugely to my inner Grumpy Old Woman. It’s called Talk to the hand: the utter bloody rudeness of everyday life (or six good reasons to stay home and bolt the door). It’s by Lynne Truss, she who wrote Eats, shoots and leaves. It’s really very funny, but did rather draw to my attention this morning, when I got onto a very crowded train, that the mother with the ten year old, or so, son, sat him on the only available seat and not herself or, indeed, any of the other adults on the train. When did children not only stop standing up for adults, but become the priority for seating? I didn’t say anything. I just kept reading my book about rudeness and incivility and grumbled a bit into m’beard! Freyja should definitely read it. It will certainly appeal to her inner Grumpy Old Woman. She’s been complaining that the Feoners (is that how you spell it, Freyja?) never say please or thank you. There’s a whole chapter in this book on people not saying please or thank you. Plus, I have tracked down a copy of The elephant and the Bad Baby for her to leave lying about at work. Not that it was difficult to track down. We teach teachers and have a vast collection of children’s books upstairs.

I’ve been at work since 10:00 this morning :( I can’t go home until 9:00 this evening :( Everyone is sick :-( Bea is downstairs being Richard. I am upstairs being Rod. I couldn’t take this morning off, even though I thought it likely I would be covering this evening, because I had already arranged appointments for students to come and visit me this morning. On the plus side – this does fantastic things to my hours. And - I get the whole of tomorrow off. I’ve got another long day on Monday and had arranged to have tomorrow off to compensate for that. This was before I realised someone was going to have to cover tonight as well. But that’s three whole days off in a row :-)

It’s been much less cold today. Now we have wind and damp instead. It is, of course, February, but that was a cold snap that harks back to cold winters from decades ago (apparently). It’s never that cold any more. Well, apart from this week, of course.

Oh. And Freyja says they’re not called Feoners. They’re Fee Earners. Which makes much more sense, but isn’t half as romantic. Really, they’re lawyers. Feoners was so much more evocative. Actually, for a long time I thought Freyja was saying Fiona. But then I thought – and realised that the entire team of lawyers couldn’t *all* be called Fiona. It could hardly be a condition of employment – you can have the job, but only if you change your name and are henceforth for ever called Fiona!