Free at last!

I've been out and about at meetings in various places over the last week, but the thing that made travel difficult - the snow - was also the thing that brought a great deal of pleasure last weekend. My wife, daughter, her school friend and I went sledging on the grounds of a nearby school. We joined about a hundred or so parents and kids in the sheer pleasure of sliding down a hill and climbing back to do it again. The winters have been so mild in recent years that my daughter outgrew her sledge without ever having a decent opportunity to use it and we gave it to a charity shop last year - bad decision, and we were reduced to using plastic kitchen trays for our descent. Mind you, some people were using heavy duty plastic fertiliser bags. Great fun! The ice is slowly melting and I can get the rear-wheel drive car safely around again, but the forecast is for more rain/snow/fog until the weekend. Much more important today is the unfolding story of the earthquake in Haiti. Some reports say 500,000 may have died and that is the population of the city I live in. Difficult to comprehend and puts our pathetic woes about some snow and ice into perspective.

Rail trip to Perth

Business trip to Perth today. Normally a 45-50 minute drive, but with the big chill and my rear-wheel drive Panzer, it was the train for me. That meant a long walk and a taxi to Waverley Station and a mad rush for a delayed train. My compliments to the common sense of the Scotrail staff who let me onto the platform and train with no ticket and pay on the train.
The picture is of the Forth Road Bridge from the Forth Rail Bridge on the cold and darkening return journey. It may be complemented over the next few years by a cable-stayed bridge if the Scottish Government can raise the cash. When it was finished in 1964, its main span of 1000m was the fourth biggest in the world - it's now the 20th but still impressive.
Temperature still zero and falling.

Currently -3 degrees Centigrade [That's 27 degrees Farenheit in America] and scheduled for 19F tomorrow
The pictures are from the front and back of the office after almost three weeks of snow and N/NE freezing wind from Siberia rather than the usual and milder SW from the Atlantic.

Welcome to a New Year and a new blog. As if the world needs one.
This is an experiment and we'll see how it goes.