BB has, in his generous style, shared his lurgy. Luckily he's on the mend, so he can bring me cups of tea and breakfast in bed. I've just about survived today, and cancelled nearly everything for tomorrow.
The cat will be pleased - she likes it when I take a duvet day.
I've swiped the following from a blog I follow called www.aclerkofoxford.blogspot.co.uk; here's the link;
http://aclerkofoxford.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/winters-day.html
Winter's Day
11th-century calendar from Christ Church, Canterbury (BL Arundel 155, f. 7)
with the beginning of winter marked on 7 November
In some Anglo-Saxon calendars, such as the one above, 7 November is considered to be the first day of winter. The Old English Menologium calls today 'Winter's Day', imagining winter as a warrior who comes to enslave the earth with frost's fetters:
And þy ylcan dæge ealra we healdað
sancta symbel þara þe sið oððe ærworhtan in worulde willan drihtnes.
Syþþan wintres dæg wide gangeð
on syx nihtum, sigelbeortne genimð
hærfest mid herige hrimes and snawes,
forste gefeterad, be frean hæse,
þæt us wunian ne moton wangas grene,
foldan frætuwe.
And on the same day [November 1] we keep
the feast of All Saints, of those who recently or long ago
worked in the world the will of the Lord.
After that comes Winter’s Day, far and wide,
after six nights, and seizes sun-bright autumn
with its army of ice and snow,
fettered with frost by the Lord's command,
so that the green fields may no longer stay with us,
the ornaments of the earth.
It has been bitterly cold today - not exactly below freezing but pretty close. I've had to scrape my car a couple of times this week, and I'm hoping I remembered to leave the handbrake off and the car in gear when I came home this afternoon. It is massively inconvenient to try and go to work only to discover that the handbrake is frozen on.
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