Dec 31st, 2023

Author: donich_admin

First Snow

The weather yesterday was snowy for the first time this winter – nice change after the rain and wind. The Rest was apparently passable, although I would not have liked to try it personally.

We did not get any Amazon orders yesterday because of the snow so we had to wait till today for the three balls of string we ordered for the cats (and tying up the Christmas tree). Rory also bought me a slanket (for those who do not know, this is a sort of giant poncho which will fit over a sling). This is because since my operation I have had to wear a sling, and therefore cannot wear anything with long sleeves. I have been about freezing in my office ever since. The slanket is good, but means that I cannot use my right hand while I’m wearing it, which is a bit of a problem. I may be going to carry out some surgery of my own and remove the right sleeve so that I can use my hand to steady things. I suspect that this may be unauthorised behaviour, but it makes life much less awkward.

I have been doing some drawing and painting while I am incapacitated (for some reason I am better at this with my left hand than my right), and below is one of my first efforts, which is supposed to be the three cats singing Christmas carols. I did it in watercolour pencils, which made it rather unfortunate that it was not done on proper watercolour paper and therefore has crinkled up a bit when I applied water. I have ordered a pad of proper watercolour paper.

I am now using Microsoft Dictate when I need to type anything long. I found it a bit difficult at first because it interferes with my train of thought, but I am getting used to it now and for anything much longer than one paragraph it makes things a lot easier than trying to peck away with my left hand only.

Two weeks left until I can remove the sling and hopefully be a bit closer to normality.