Frozen

The brilliant snow from last week has now been replaced by miserable, gray, icy slush.

I went out to my car this morning, thinking merely that the windscreen had a bit of condensation on it. It was only when the wipers skittered across the glass that I realised that the whole car was encased in a coating of almost transparent ice. It took me nearly ten minutes of concentrated chipping to restore some measure of visibility.

The roads weren't much better. Although the motorways were clear, the A628 route to Manchester is still blocked by snow with all of the usual traffic diverted via the M62 and the M1 which just so happens to be my journey. It took me over an hour this morning, and even yesterday morning when I was driving that way at seven o'clock it was still crawling. This is a major trans-Pennine route, at least judging by the extra traffic on the M1, so surely it should be a priority for the snow ploughs and gritters?

At least the office was relatively quiet after the stress of yesterday, giving me a chance to catch my metaphorical breath. It was even quieter in the afternoon as people disappeared off early as news of cancelled buses and trains came through due to lack of (true) grit.

In games news, after about five years of trying I finally managed to catch a dung beetle in Animal Crossing. The only time that you ever see them is during the winter, when they push snowballs around. If you startle them (very easy to do) they fly off immediately, so I really did hold my breath whilst I got my butterfly net out, and then gave a cheer when I actually caught one. Now for the pesky coelacanth ...

Meanwhile in Echo Bazaar, the nightmares became too much for my fragile psyche and my mind snapped like a strumpet's garter, leaving me in a strange state of confusion. It took a day of patient exploration of the dream world that I was trapped in before I was returned to the relatively sane world of Fallen London. This game reads like a cross between Charles Dickens and HP Lovecraft, with a healthy dose of Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere for good measure, and it really should be tried by anyone with a penchant for the outré and strange.