On lecterns, and cold hands

Eagle lectern
Originally uploaded by goforchris.

Brass eagles don't usually leap into the mind when the weather is cold - monkeys are much more likely. However, today I want to consider a brass eagle like this one, a lectern in a chilly church on an icy Sunday. Specifically, and not to detract from this magnificent specimen in the Cathedral of The Isles, I want to consider the lectern in Holy Trinity, Dunoon, and its effect on me this icy morning.

Today was my turn to preach. Having read the gospel (it was a lay-led service), I propped my notes on the lectionary as usual - and found that they wouldn't stay put unless I held on a bit. (The lectionary at this early point in the year lies a bit lop-sided when open at the right page). I tend to hang on to the wing-tips anyway, as it anchors the hands in a decorous sort of fashion.

Halfway through I had a vision. It was not an angelic vision, nor was it helpful. I pictured myself as in a heat-imager: starting off quite red and glowing, in my good wool coat to the ankles and the fur-lined boots. Within moments, my hands are blue, then black. The glowing red is drained out of my shape, passing instead to the eagle. By the end of the sermon, my frozen body retreats and the eagle, glowing like the Phoenix, takes off and soars down the church.

There you are. I told you it wasn't helpful. But I must try to do something different with my hands next time.

Or wear gloves ...

Ups and downs in the ice age

This beautiful, difficult, challenging, cheering weather! What a time to be without a camera (mine jammed on Boxing Day and won't even be seen by anyone till Monday, weather permitting) - the photo of the afterglow on the hills to the north was taken on my phone, cropped and digitised using
shock my pic, a process which imparts a touch of the Van Gogh in place of the fuzzy focus of my phone in all but the best light. I hadn't realised what an addict I was until I couldn't take photos any more.

Now that we seem to have settled into a routine more familiar in Canada or Scandinavia (I exaggerate, but never mind) I have had time to think about the good and bad sides of this existence. Top of the bad pile must come the frozen waste pipe from our kitchen this morning. This pipe has frozen once before in our time here, during the fearsome cold snap which saw the first visit of Mrs Tosh to Dunoon. The chill in the house (because we kept going outside to empty the basin) and on the train journey home contributed to a determination never to return to Dunoon if the month had an r in it. (I'm glad she repented, slightly). Anyway, the pressure of trying to drain into this frozen pipe blew apart a join in the waste pipe from the washing machine, with a great rush of water behind the kitchen units driving me and Mr B into paroxysms of despair. But the good pile was crowned by the appearance, three hours later, of a plumber and his mate, who thawed the pipe with their blowtorch and reconnected the washing machine. The best bit was that the mate was once a renowned miscreant at school, who admitted to his name with a wry grin as we assured him that today, no matter what he had been, we loved him.

Another goody is the justification of my purchase, in November, of a super-warm, super-expensive goose-down gilet. Along with a fleece I bought 20 years ago and rarely wore because it was too warm, it has hardly been off my back. Ditto the expensive, 15 year old Italian fur-lined boots. Ditto the central heating we installed - our first - in August. Baddies? I'm tired of feeling like Michelin lady; I hate my hat-flattened hair; I'm bored with walking only on the shore road because Mr B has not yet managed to get spikey doo-dahs for his feet and the forest paths are lethal. And sometimes I'm fed up being so cold if I go outside without putting everything on.

But a last, positive thought: when you're cold, do you use up more calories in simply existing?

Frozen assets

Toward Point ..
Originally uploaded by goforchris.

This photo shows why I live in this inconvenient place. It's stunningly beautiful just now - I can't recall a time when cold weather lasted so long or so fiercely here, where we're more used to grey skies and rain and any snow turning rapidly to slush. Today the temperature never got above freezing, despite the sun; it was, however, much less chilling than yesterday, when on this particular bit of coast the wind was blowing straight in our faces.

Actually, if this weather continues, we may get sick of always walking along the shoreline (everywhere away from the sea is a sheet of ice unless gritted) but for now, it's a joy. And it's a joy to be able to wear the really warm clothes I've had for years because they so seldom get out - the warm Goas of Rohan's back catalogue (fleece-lined windproof breeks), the double-sided fleece that usually makes me sweat just to look at it, the expensive goose-down gilet I splashed out on a couple of months ago.

But lest I sound too smug, here's where I record my sympathy for all my readers who have no water, whether in Arran or in Glen Lean or in Seil, those whose boilers (in Paisley) are malfunctioning. Just try to be your usual fragrant selves when next we meet, huh?