A taste of winter weather

We had snow last night; not a lot, but enough to send my wife into paroxysms of joy, and the children into various states of amused fascination. This photo was taken when I thought I'd be going into the office. However, I soon realised that the snow had also been enough to send the road and rail networks into chaos and so shortly after this photo opportunity, I abandoned the work idea and jumped into jeans and a jumper instead. Today has been spent watching snowflakes falling, and what a pleasant experience that is, after many years in the land of heat and dust. Mind you, we don't half miss the Indian temperatures.

eBay ain't a bad place to be

In the interests of even-handedness, and having written about people's wastefulness, I suppose I should also comment on certain buying habits.

Years ago, my brother and a friend and I took ourselves up to Hammersmith Odeon, bought tickets from a tout and then shook our heads to AC/DC and Def Leppard. I kept my ticket stub from that concert and thought I'd put it up for sale on eBay. It's of no interest to me now, and anyway, it's been in my parents' loft for the past thirty odd years. I see from the ticket that the face value was £3.75 which means that we probably paid a fiver for those tickets. If I remember rightly, I paid for my brother's ticket because it was his birthday the previous day.

That ticket stub has now reached the heady heights of a £10.50 offer on eBay with the number of people watching the item now well into double figures. Here, you can bid on it yourself if you'd like to: AC/DC Ticket.

Hallowhere?

I was well prepared for Halloween this year. Having been reminded that the US-imported nonsense of trick or treat is now an annual UK occurrence as well, I thought that well, if you can’t beat ‘em, at least be prepared to dish out sweets on your doorstep to the local horrors rather than have them throw eggs at your door, or uproot your plants. And so I bought a tub of sweets from the supermarket and left it ready by the front door. I also somehow found my hairy werewolf hands and witch mask which I’ve worn at Halloween parties in the past, and I determined that if anyone did knock on the door, that I’d turn the hallway lights out, put the hairy hands and mask on, and try and scare the living daylights out of whoever was waiting on the doorstep.

I waited and I waited.

Finally, at around eight-thirty I think, there was a ring on the doorbell, and I went into action: hands on, mask on, lights off, hairy hand creeping slowly round the door, followed by the warty old witch face… There was a little gasp, a faint “Oh!” and… it was the woman from over the road delivering the local church newsletter.

So I invited her in, she exorcised my demons and I gave her some sweets from the tub for her and her husband. And that was the only visitor we had that whole evening.
Halloween? Hallo-WTF.