12:37 
And our freezer isn't working because it's part of a fridge freezer that only has one thermostat - for the fridge. Of course the weather is currently so cold that the fridge has given up trying to keep the food colder than outside, so the freezer is no longer being cooled either.
Dammit. Damn stupid design.
11:47
The itchy feet are getting itchier. I walked about three miles or more yesterday, in the cold and snow, slipping all over the place, all by myself. Didn't get home until after it was dark. It wasn't enough. It was too close to home, but I didn't fancy taking the car out by myself in yesterday's weather. The sun was out but the roads were very icy and slippery, and while the main roads were well gritted, they didn't go anywhere I wanted to go. For the same reason I decided against taking Percival out. Those narrow tyres are very good in the rain but not much use on ice.
While I was out I had a look in Touchwoods to see if they had anything decent in the sale. I need a new pair of gloves anyway, the ones I have are useless. Some stuff was reduced, but while 20 quid off a 150 quid jacket is a reduction, you really want a real bargain. I'm after a Gore-Tex shell and a windstopper fleece. Maybe some crampons and an ice axe. I've developed a sudden interest in moutaineering. Frood is considering buying himself a double-layer ventile jacket when his bonus comes through. I'd be jealous then, if it weren't for the fact that ventile is much heavier. He likes the fact that it doesn't "whiffle" He hates whiffley clothes.
Discovered that our Vaude Hogan tent is suitable for colder weather than I thought it was. Might be able to start our camping/walking season earlier this year if Frood gets some better kit. We were discussing it last night and are definitely going to hunt out some medium-distance walks - sort of a long weekend of between 10 and 15 miles a day type of thing - for this year. We'll go back to the long-distance ones, but until we have our kit just right, we don't really want another disappointment like the last one. I really want to do the West Highland Way sometime as well - I'm guessing we'll need a lot of mosquito netting for that, although knowing our luck the midges can burrow through that stuff.
Already started thinking about this year's #pagan camping season as well. Both Fell and I have exchanged ideas. Herefordshire again is a definite must, and I think Exmoor would be a good one too. We haven't done Savernake for a couple of years now, but then I was never all that keen on it as I'm not really a forest type of person. I prefer hills and moors and cliffs to trees and bushes and leafmould. I don't know if we're going to try to do it this year. Most of the people who came for the last trip to Savernake haven't been coming to the other camps. The Fuzzbuddy obviously wouldn't - not sure he'll ever change his attitude on that matter. PC and DM have demanding kiddies and no reliable babysitter, which is a real shame because they were a riot at the last Savernake trip. Heh. Just remembered that W came over for that one too. What a pair to share a tent.
I am so restless. Itchy, itchy feet. I am going to cut my hair too. It's driving me nuts.
Tuesday, December 26, 2000
23:26
I cut out a stencil of my tattoo design today, and got Frood to spray mount it to my back and fill it in with skin paint I got in a bookshop. If I can get the position while being inked such that it doesn't compress when I'm upright (I was bent over while Frood painted it on) it looks even better on skin than it does on paper. It suddenly comes to life. The contours of the back give it an extra something. I'm getting rather nervous now, though, because everyone who finds out about it (Eric has been quite vocal) goes on and on about how much it will hurt. Frood says not to worry about it because I have pretty poor sensitivity to needle pricks. Isn't helping. I'm really scared of wussing out. Thinking about it, though, I'd feel worse about having a part-finished tattoo.
Man, it's going to hurt like a bastard though.
14:13
Had another weird dream last night, in the odd 20 minutes I managed to get any sleep.
Better explain. It turns out that Eric had gone deaf in one ear, so his custom of having his radio on all night has become more than a quirk. He has had the volume turned up so loud I could hear the shipping forecast quite clearly. We also had two extra people in the house last night, and there was a lot of to-ing and fro-ing. On top of this, the extraordinary quantities of food Frood consumed seemed to make his snoring louder and more persistent than normal.
Anyway. I dreamt that Frood and I went on holiday to Tierra del Fuego, which had mysteriously become a country which was right in the south of North America, and had a mountain range in its South, which connected North America to South America. We decided to climb this, for some reason, but there was one point where the only way across was around this rocky outcrop which was very high, very sheer, and very difficult to climb. The first time I bottled it, but we went back some two weeks later (having been in S. America all that time, for some reason) and this time, despite a massive panic attack halfway through where I couldn't move for the fear, I managed it. Only I had forgotten my passport and we ended up in customs without my passport and everyone was speaking some form of Spanish. Frood had been there before (he hasn't) and said everything was going to be ok, we'd just explain what had happened.
I was woken up around then. Very odd.
Sunday, December 24, 2000
14:37
Heh. Not sure what's "intriguing" about my art, particularly. It's not very good yet, that's what it is.
Went to the gym yesterday. Had to do a short programme, am very weak. It's terribly dispiriting to set the weights, knowing that a few months ago you could manage nearly twice that, and getting off the treadmill after 15 minutes knowing that you used to be able to run for more than 2 miles on that thing, even if it did take half an hour. I'm still having to avoid the rower too, because my back is in a dreadful state. When I woke up this morning I felt like I'd been flattened by a steam roller. Every bone felt like jelly.
Strange dreams last night. There was this French woman, who was working as some sort of special agent, but there was a sense that this was in some weird future-past time. The politics in her head were almost renaissance, but she knew about satellite technology, so that was weird for a start. Also, she used horses for transport, and journeys that we might expect to make in a few hours she allowed days for. She lived by the sea, somewhere in the south. There were far fewer people in the world than I would have expected. She wanted to go home to her lover, a man of simple thoughts and pleasures who lived in her house by the sea, but was almost feral. She was never sure if he would be there. He was tall and muscular, with long dark hair.
The part of the coast where they were was full of narrow coves and tiny islands. The water was quite shallow. She rode in and left her horse on the shore, then went out looking for this man. She found him in one of their favourite spots, near-naked, swimming. So she went swimming too. They had just found a bed of queenie scallops (although the water was really far too shallow for queenies) in a pebble bed at the opening of a very long disused sewage pipe. The water was sparkling clean, though. There were other molluscs there, things like small winkles that looked a bit like eyes. They collected some of those as well. They were very aware that they had to keep the location of these things secret or other people would come and take them. Not very nice people. There was a vague sense of there being pirates around.
Then three men came thundering along on horseback, with guns. They were after the woman and they shot her, with a musket. The ball was tiny, tough, and embedded in her head. She fell, and, thinking they had killed her, they left. But as her lover wept and cradled her, rage beginning to course through him, another man came along to help. He had with him these pincers, which looked like they were made of cast iron, and were a very strange shape. The ends that grasped formed an almost spherical shape, and there was a band attached to one of them also, as if they had been made for grasping something spherical of the same size as a cherry tomato. This man gave the pincers to the lover, who used them to take the musket ball from out of the woman's head. She was waking up by this time, but was woozy and confused. The dream ended at about that time. There was never any explanation for what was happening, but again this strong sense of there being context to what was happening, only I was not party to it because I did not live that life.
I also had a dream in which I was being taken around this massive museum in Boston. I can't remember very much about it, but it seems I was a guest of some people who were definitely academics and I was there for more than just a social visit. It was a very strange place. There were things there that would certainly be classified as non-consensus but they were seen as being, if not perfectly ordinary, at least something accepted. Rather like finding a rare moth. I might remember more of that later.
Finally saw The Nightmare Before Christmas" last night. What a pile of trite, pretentious, self-indulgent, tedious, whinging, nauseating old wank.
No, we didn't like it. At all. Visually ok, the animation was technically stunning, I'll give them that, but it was tat. Tim Burton gets all this credit for doing "dark" stuff. People say he's very dark. Well he's not. He's about as dark as a vanilla slice in a paper bag - he takes stories that are your typical artificially sweetened fairy stories and splashes a bit of gothic overlay on them, and people think that they are dark.
Nope. Not at all.
Been talking to Bling. Time to get out walking for sure. My feet are very itchy. Had to nip out to the shop this morning for nutmeg and chorizo, and I was utterly appalled by all these people running around. They were like ants, but with less honesty than ants. Not a good thing to be thinking at this time of year.