SNOW!

There's something about snow that's just good. I could wax lyrical about the beauty of a frozen landscape, the aesthetic magic of turning an ugly town beautiful with a blanket of pristine whiteness. I also acknowledge that it can be a right pain in the arse, as anyone who saw me 'driving' to work this morning would testify. It's just so much fun though! You can't make footprints in sunshine, or throw rainballs, or make fogmen. Snow angels yes. Sand Angels and you'd be finding grit in orifices for weeks. And as a self confessed fan of grit free orifices, that's bad.

This was the sight that greeted me as I looked out my window this morning:

There's something that the 8 year old phil inside me finds irresistably exciting about waking up to a snow covered landscape. And given that my inner 8 year old is responsible for most of my decisions, 22 year old phil got excited too. I can't help grinning like an idiot when I see snow. I need to buy wellies. Even at school I was still happily gazing out the window as the snow blanketed the valley.

Having said that, maybe a winter in akita will dampen my enthusiasm. It's cold. Very cold. And my apartment is somehow colder than outside. Honest.

Basically for all their technological advancements the japanese on the whole have not yet grasped the concept of insulation in their houses. I'm 90% sure my walls are made of a combination of plywood and rice cakes. As such I have been getting into bed with my enormous winter coat on, then waiting til my bodyheat warms the duvet up before disrobing. Tonight I will purchase kerosene for my two kerosene heaters, and if I die of carbon monoxide poisoning, I'm really sorry but it was proper nippy!

This is rephrigerated phil signing ophph! More news as it happens.