What else am I going to post about, except the weather? Well, boys and girls, that was fun, wasn’t it? Those pictures are of my actual car, and the actual ice I had to get rid of before I could foolishly drive off to get it stuck in the snow 🙂 I loved the part where I was chipping thick slabs of ice off the windscreen as seen on the left; it was extremely satisfying. I was determined to go in to work, rather than stay in and fret about my patients but my poor old car was just too low-slung. Can I just say how much I love my fellow human beings? My wonderful neighbour came out with his trusty shovel to clear the snow behind the car, while his wife joined in to help as I stood cluelessly by. Their toddler kids mostly threw themselves into the snow drifts while we were distracted. After a while, I persuaded them to hand over the spade seeing as it was after all my car, but I regret to report that my efforts were so risible that the wife took the shovel out of my hands before I hurt myself. I felt like a prize chump 🙂 AlaraApothecary: countrywoman survivalist, not!

Anyway, off I went, only to get stuck. Couldn’t go forward or backward but I had the sense to stop then. Out came the neighbours to push me back to the parking space. One of my patients then travelled 7 miles on those wretched roads to drive me into work in his swanky LandRover Discovery. I love people!! Plus, that car, what a beaut! That’s the second one I’ve been driven in, in the last couple of weeks and yes, it’s true love. I want one; in fact, I need one. 4WD, shiny gadgets with lights that you can press to change driving mode, the smell of expensive leather, oh me, oh my….

Anyhoo, off to work, having witnessed many hilarious road rage incidents involving upstanding citizens and boy-racers. Someone actually got out of their car and shook their fist, just like in the cartoons! Excellent 🙂 I had to bunk down in a local hotel as it was the only way I could be certain of making it to work the next day. Hotel fine, all restaurants closed. Trudge through the snow to the petrol station where a Subway was valiantly doing business. How delicious is a steak & cheese sub (with olives, jalapenos & salsa), washed down with Sheppy’s cider with raspberry when you are starving? Food of the gods, mos’ def. Especially followed with a fabulously synthetic-tasting Tiramisu that cost £1 for two portions. Truly, we undersell the appeal of intensely-calorific fast food. It was the highlight of my day.

Best bit of the week? Getting a lift to work from yet another patient: 8am on saturday, the only car on the road. Fields on both sides of the road as far as the eye can see, with the top layer melting and solid snow underneath. For all the world, it looked exactly as though God had reached down overnight and placed humongous sheets of glass down on top of two lakes. It was ridiculously beautiful. And don’t even start me off about the icicles hanging off the willow trees, and the sun shining on the melting snow crystals. Sparkle that makes the Cullinan diamond look like a piece of paste. What a wonderful world.

So, back to normal. I bought so much wine and chocolates as thank you prezzies, and so little food, that the cashier at Sainsburys’ gave me a very dodgy look. ‘Hard week’, I said. She nodded sagely; she was definitely feeling me 🙂 A huge thank you to all those who helped me last week, to the staff in hotels and restaurants who struggled in to work, and to all the people who worried about my welfare and checked up on me. You’re awesome and you know it. The following pictures of jaw-droppingly mental interiors are for you; hope they bring a smile to your faces. I particularly like the insane bathrooms. Have a good one.

 

 

 

Sometimes I feel as though I am in one of those bubbles, swimming in shark-infested waters. I was in a supermarket yesterday, one of the big four. In front of me  was a middle-aged woman complaining in stentorian tones about the fact that the last lot of loo rolls she had purchased ‘was packed too tightly in the package. And I’m not the only one, many people feel the same, so you need to sort it’. My questions are: what did the she think that this poor woman who spends 8 hours on her feet everyday, selling newspapers and cigarettes for the minimum wage, could do to alter the packaging protocols of Unilever, Procter & Gamble, or whomever? And who are these morons with strong feelings about the tight packaging of loo rolls, and do they have a support group? Is this not a prime example of First World problems, where the biggest issue you have is how to remove your loo roll from its packaging? I restricted myself to giving her what I like to refer to as ‘an eloquent look’. And yes, she did flinch, which was extremely gratifying. I did not launch into my usual ‘Don’t talk to her like that!’, as it contravenes my ongoing resolution to never get into an argument with a crazy or stupid person – they just bring you down to their level, and leave you incoherent with rage.

Of course she did not believe that the girl could solve her issue. She just wanted an easy target to berate, and who better than the poor employee who cannot answer back where ‘the customer is always right’. I thought the assistant was very restrained in not fetching a haddock from the temptingly handy fish counter, and slapping her around the head a few times. Yes, you’ll lose your job, but what a way to go 🙂 The assault charges would of course be something else………Commiserating with the assistant who reacted to my sympathy in a guarded manner, obviously suspecting that I might be the dreaded mystery shopper, she just shrugged and said ‘You just let it was over you’. And I thought, ‘Does it really, though? 20 years of letting it ‘wash over you’, and who do you become?’ To quote David Gray, ‘It takes a lot of love my friend, to keep your heart from freezing, to push until the end’. The world seems to be full of angry, unhappy people whose sole raison d’être is  to make other people as angry and as unhappy as they are. Seeing a smiling face is like waving the metaphorical red rag in front of a bull as far as they are concerned. This week brought to mind a quote from The Social Contract, “Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains. One thinks himself the master of others, and still remains a greater slave than they.” Unless of course, the Son sets you free; then you are free indeed.

And yet, and yet. This week alone, a favourite customer came to me, told me to close my eyes and hold out my hand. After issuing many threats, I complied, and she put a box of handmade fudge into my hands. I saw a rainbow set against thunderclouds, the colours shading and fusing into one another.  A little pal came in to show me her missing teeth. One had fallen out naturally, and she ‘encouraged’ the second one by pulling it out, thereby scoring £3 from the tooth fairy. First of all, £3!!!! Talk about inflation. Plus, what a budding entrepeneur, I’m so proud of her 🙂 I did not tell her where her kidneys are, in case she gets any bright ideas…..She displayed these gaps, and just like that, I was six years old again, and probing a wobbling tooth with my tongue until it eventually gave up. Magic.

I leave you with this set of images from South Africa, showing a lioness who had lost her own cubs, and who rescued and protected a newly-born springbok that had been rejected by its mother. Have a wonderful week.