All White on the Night!

You know how it is when you face a task that you're not quite sure how to attack?  Almost inevitably, you put it off, time after time.  Eventually the back burner gets so fed up with it that it kicks it back!  It was a job like that that shared top billing this week with the 'Beast from the East'.

The Beast kept me cold at night ... sleep has been at a premium, and only in bursts, despite an aggregate four blankets on top of the bed!  Meanwhile, the afore-mentioned postponed job provided the excitement - if indeed that's the right word - in the daytime, at least for half of the week.  The challenge was that of compiling a Fire Safety Risk Assessment for the church.  It's the sort of requirement that is to a great extent common sense, and has been so for many years, but a conscientious pair of churchwardens decided it's about time ours was put in writing.  The original 'thinking through' was first carried out many years ago and, although the resulting precautions are rigidly adhered to, the re-creation of those thought processes of yore has proved very hard.

At last, over the course of last weekend, it became clear to me how this should be achieved, and much of my week's confinement because of the snow and the cold was expended in studying the official handouts and compiling two sources into a draft document that key personnel in the church can now come together to discuss.  Task - for the moment, at least - off my desk!

So, what else has occupied the week?  Last week I announced the arrival of a new phone.  An early conversation on Monday - following my joy at going out at 6.0 a.m., with the temperature -2.5 degrees, and being able to sweep the dry snow off the car with no scraping involved - drew my attention to a very useful follow-up.  A year or so ago, I had abandoned my Google calendar when Google - or my computer - was playing up, and I couldn't always open the diary when I needed.  That problem has long passed, but now, with a new phone that's got lots of spare memory, I was able to move the calendar back to Google and sync it with the phone app.

Twice, later in the week, I was very glad that I'd taken that step, when I was asked, 'do you have your diary with you?' and I was able to make an appointment for next week and a day later to change my arrangements on a rota for the end of March.

On Thursday, I finally got around to checking on a cousin whom I 'discovered' last year through my family history researches.  At that time, our exchanges informed me that she was facing a number of problems.  'If I'm quiet for a time', she told me, 'you'll know the reason.'  Later, I received a response that began 'you must be psychic!'.  She'd been thinking in recent days about catching up with me.  It's nice when that sort of thing happens, and to be hoped that no further problems prevent us getting to know each other a bit better, and catching up with sixty-odd years of our respective histories.

One final forward-looking piece of news to round off the week was the arrival yesterday of the much-awaited programme for the ringers' weekend challenge, which is now less than a month away.  It's to be hoped that all thoughts of snow will be firmly confined to the winter, as we greet spring with a trip to Warwickshire.