Monday, February 6th

Oh, bloody bollocking bollocks. More snow overnight. Yesterday I spent a nail biting half an hour getting the car from the long driveway at the back of the house to the short driveway at the front. In order to get it up the driveway, I had pretty well clear it. Anyone who’s ever shovelled wet snow, knows how much fun that is. I figured once I got to level ground I could probably drive on the remaining snow to turn it around. Nope. As soon as the front (non-snow) tires got to the wet snow they just started spinning. Bollocks.

At that point there was only half an hour before Charlie was due to pick me up and take me to the shops to buy coffee and fags before we headed to our rehearsal, so I gave up and came inside to make myself a sandwich. (Cheese and pickle on freshly baked bread. Yum.)

It didn’t really strike me until I got in his car that I had been without human contact for three days. When we got to Dave’s, I hugged them both – and Dave’s wife – because I was so happy to just be out in the world for a couple of hours.

The rehearsal went well. For all his playing hard to get last year, Charlie really does seem to be relishing his role. (A couple of weeks ago I wasn’t so sure, thought he might be cursing me for dragging him into another play, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.) I’ve been, as I knew I would be, having a ball since day one.

And now (thanks, Mother Nature) I’m back to being a shut-in until I get picked up tomorrow for the next rehearsal.

The car is covered in snow again. The driveway has another layer of snow on it. Snow remains in the forecast until the weekend. (Grrr.) The wood pile is diminishing rapidly.

I feel as if I should be finding all this a bit depressing, but, curiously, I’m not. (Although the wood pile is a worry.) I have a reasonable amount of food in the house. Thanks to my friend in the UK, I have plenty of wine. Thanks to Charlie, I have coffee and a carton of fags. And there is a big ol’ pile of books waiting to be read. Things could be worse.