Weather Fronts

Outlook: gloomy, dull, with bands of soul-drenching rain.

Instead of 2011 being a kinder, healthier, more giving year than 2010, it has already taken me down a dark alley of US urban legend and roughed me up, with the promise, implied by two fingers pointing to its eyes, then mine, then its own again, of more.

Outlook: Stormy, with chance of being struck by lightning, or maimed  by metaphoric hail the size of golf-balls.

Not content with private pummellings, 2011 has also given me a public drubbing and strapped me in the stocks, in readiness for further trouncing, no doubt.

Outlook: Low pressure to the North will bring with it bands of meh.

Meh.

Outlook: A little brighter, with the chance of some rays of sunshine.

Ding-dong.  Well, actually, the doorbell to my flat doesn't do that cheerful 'Avon-calling' malarchy.  Hell it's not even a bell.  It's a buzzer that when set off, sounds like someone using a pneumatic drill.  Just to the left of your ear-drum. I'd give you some onomatopoeia here, but words, even made-up ones, just cannot do it justice.  So we'll say drrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr and give you a tiny, and not really close, sample of the real thing.

Drrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.  Hello?  (Thank heavens for intercoms. Even the ear-drum-tearing kind.)  Ja, hallo! Pakketje voor U.  (A small package? Oh - probably for the girl who lives downstairs.) Ik kom... (Followed by some careful negotiations of 2 flights of Dutch stairs, the steepness and general craggy-mountain-reaches-where-only-ropes-and-God-will-help-you of which have to be seen to be believed.)  Handtekening hier, alstublieft.  Ooh.  It's for me.  And has an enormous printed out address label with pretty things and a lovely font, and a return-to address which indicates said gorgeous-looking package is from my DS.

The time to scribble my signature on the receipt form and race up the stairs to open said pakketje has only been bested once.  That instance involved no signature, just a very full bladder, so least said...

Chocolate. Wool. Beaded wire-work hearts. Scented candles.  Niknaks. (Nom!) Make-up. More chocolate. Hair thingies.  A little hug-on-a-card. My favourite body butter. Apple and cinnamon tea-bags.  Still more chocolate.  And a metal sign that informs visitors that singing, dancing and swearing are not allowed in this respectable house.  (Oh, how I laughed.  And continued to do so whilst placing it at the bottom of the stairs by the front door to make sure that it's the first thing that people see.  And ensuring that they will laugh, too. People who know me, I can guarantee, will see that sign and, at the very least, give a hearty snort.)  Thank you, sister-mine.  Just when the clouds were settling overhead, you sent me a box of sun beams.

Forecast as promised: Rays of sunshine.