Back to life, back to reality

After nearly two weeks of eating, drinking and being merry, not forgetting extended snoozling opportunities in the mornings, it was something of a shock to the system when the alarm tootled at a quarter past six this morning. Mind you, I’d already had a bit of a restless night with anxiety dreams about having to get up and drive to Swansea to collect my dad for some unspecified reason, so I was half awake in the morning gloom. I had to use my torch to pick my way round the icy wilderness of the woods, although this extended freeze seems quite odd with the weather being overcast rather than clear as you might expect on a still morning with the temperature somewhere around minus three or so.

It seems that most people are still in holiday mode with the drive into work taking less than half an hour, and there was only one other person in my section when I booted up my laptop at half past eight. All of the festive tat has been packed away now, which always makes the place feel brighter and fresher, and it didn’t take too long to get back into the swing of things.

I’ve not made any new year’s resolutions to speak of, other than to get organised about updating the books that I’ve read on goodreads.com. I won two books in the My Favourite Books draw, so I’ve got those to look forward to, and I’m about two thirds of the way through ‘An Ungodly Child’ which I am enjoying enormously, particularly the sly references to Bartitsu and obscure bits of the bible.

In podcast news, a couple of programmes have caught my ear recently. Frost Fair is about the celebrations that were held on the Thames when it froze over in the seventeenth century, and includes music, prose and even details of the powerful sounding alcoholic beverages on sale in the ‘Fuddle Tents’ including Pearl, a sort of absinthe beer containing wormwood and served hot, and Mum which was alleged to render the drinker mute with its strength. As a complete opposite, The Long, Hot Summer is about the place that the heat waves and bushfires of the Australian summer have in the national psyche – fascinating and evocative, and a welcome antidote to the winter chill.