Saturday, November 21, 2009

Roddy Doyle says...

Older D is deep in "Rover Saves Christmas" by Roddy Doyle. I turned round from reading the news to see this sight




...apparently Chapter 4 contains the following " warning... wear gloves and a hat when reading this chapter, because it takes place in Lapland, the North of Finland and it's very cold there"

which is very silly even more silly as she's reading it in Alaska and it's very cold here too (although it has warmed up to 12.3 degrees f this morning brrrrrrr)

There are many squeals and chortles from behind me so I think she's enjoying the book

4 comments:

  1. Love the get-up!! Can you please stop mentioning cold and snow as it's making me depressed with envy-really. It's just continual torrential rain here which is the worst weather of all. At least we live at such altitude that we've not been flooded out.

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  2. I was talking to my sister on the phone and she was not happy with the weather...webbed feet seem to be in order... I'll wish for some crisp clear days for you
    Here the first snow arrived later than usual but then the temperature plummeted and instead of the usual 27 we went down to minus 3 degrees f which is a bit brisk unless you are really well wrapped up and it's best to cover your face too. Once wrapped up and warm it's beautiful...the key is wearing decent boots and lots of layers and staying warm!

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  3. Val, I used to live in Moscow-one of the reasons I agreed to go was the winter weather. While we were there the coldest it got was -40C (and the hottest +42C!). We still went out and about in that, but as you say, a bit more had to be covered than usual. We did learn to avoid going out when it was windy, though, to avoid losing extremities! I miss the winters a lot.

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  4. Living on the coast this far south we don't get the extreme cold,cold of Moscow.You get occasional storms from the Gulf which can melt all the snow and turns all the roads into ice rinks..which is interesting..last year they graded/scraped the roads with some sort of rake and made deep grooves in the ice to give vehicles some sort of purchase...which was needed.
    Cold snowy places are beautiful places to live but also are very unforgiving aren't they.
    I found once you accept Nature's complete indifference to your fate and act accordingly the Winters are most beautiful the light bounced by the snow and the skies can be irresistible.I can easily see why you miss that.

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from an old gravestone

If you hold your nose to the Grindstone
and you leave it there long enough,
Then soon you'll say
there's no such things
as brooks that babble
and birds that sing,
these three will all your world compose,
just you, the stone and your poor old nose.

(from memory so may not be word perfect)