Winter is upon us.

Winter has arrived (hopefully I do not hear Mr and Mrs Barns laughing in Spain, where they arfe still touring on their bikes) and it took nearly ten minutes to clear solid ice from the car before setting off for work.  AND there they were, first day of Winter,  too cold to stand and wait on a bus, so take the car and cause even more chaos; and there are those who seem incapable of clearing their windscreens, or any windows and drive with a tiny wee square cleared - these are the folks the police should be stopping; and finally there are those who must shovel as much snow on their cars as possible and delight in getting into Edinburgh looking like "Nanook of the North" and want their colleagues to heap praise on them for struggling in to work.

Having just written the above, maybe I was daft to take the Steed of steel out for a run this afternoon to meet up with Dougz and Tom at Livingston,  but the sun was shining, the roads were good,  only the car park at Deerpark was a bit icy - and I did come home before the sun set and the temperature dropped.  

Completely forgot about the Royal Variety Performance being on tonight and only just managed to see the last four acts.   However, seeing Shirley Bassey reminded me of meeting her at the Edinburgh Playhouse Theatre many years ago when they held a gala concert for the Queen during the Edinburgh Commonwealth Games.    I had to conduct a search of her dressing room and she stayed there while we did our thing, she later rehearsed on stage, dancing about six inches above my head while I crawled under the staging .    Those were the days when my shadow was slightly smaller and I was agile enough for such adventures.