The role of women

Without wanting to beat my breasts as a militant feminist, I am currently furious with myself. I'm self-raging as frankly I've accepted a new job where, once again, I am someone's assistant. Now, it's irrefutable that in most cases the boss is of the peen-owning variety and the woman of the submissive, ordered, administrative sort. I fit into this perfectly and yet it seems so confined. My beloved manflesh and I both went to 'good' universities, not Oxbridge grant you, but still recognised institutions. He is doing fabulously and, within his chosen path, he is certainly considered something of a precocious talent. Whilst I organise the travel plans of a Little Man. How did this happen? I am going nowhere, I have no transferable skills, in short, I am qualified for nothing! Must I accept my own mediocrity? Now? So soon? I'm not talking about changing the world, simply exercising my brain from time to time and experiencing some uncharted thoughts in the course of the day. Not just considering how to break the news to Little Man that due to company allegiance the airmile program will not recognise five flights booked through a rival operator.

Did I mention that I am not a travel-rep?

1987, snow, nostalgia

I was all of 8 and to my brother and I, heavy snow storms meant big snow drifts. Snow is now fairly rare in the green land of England, and when it does fall it tends to form into grey sludge to match the sky. As we are utterly unequipped for any sort of extreme even 2 inches can undo the entire country. When the snow arrived it had retained it's American origins: namely being bigger, brighter and whiter than any snow I had ever seen, and oh the portion size! The cosy nook of Norfolk was smothered and glorious. For children it was a welcome excuse for an extra holiday as the schools were forced to shut because of menacing icicles the same size as the pupils. The impromptu holiday ended up lasting three weeks and our village was snowed in because the main road to the city was blocked at Booton dip, situated about 3 miles out of the town. Milk and bread were helicoptered in to the next village along, Cawston, to keep the townfolk fed. I heard the bigger boys talking with authority about snow drifts and quickly learned to spot them and take advantage of the weightlessness they lent, fleetingly, to a small child.

But all of this reminds me of the infamous Winter of 1947 when the sea froze [see attached image] now this may happen in the wilds of Canada but our the small island this sort of extreme is impossible.