I've uploaded a video of the sudden snowfall to youtube.com. It was a perfectly nice day last Monday, and then suddenly there was a flurry of snow for 5 minutes which covered everything. Then sun for 5 minutes which melted everything, and another snowfall. It was pretty neat to watch from the flat, but Victoria was outside in it.

Mom and Dad, we have something we forgot to tell you....


Just kidding. This weekend we got to go visit Thomas, Victoria's new nephew. He is about three weeks old, and very cute. You can see him here with Victoria.


A close-up, slightly out of focus as Victoria was rocking him.


The amazingly happy auntie.


Thomas does have real parents, but Victoria was too busy hogging the baby to let them (or me) get any pictures with him.

I made a mistake on the train journey home. I left my ticket in my pocket and it fell out. Since buying a replacement ticket would cost about 50 pounds (100 dollars), I really didn't want to pay that. I went and talked with the conductor. Since Victoria still had her return ticket and the original receipt (plus the original tickets to our destination), he accepted that I had probably lost it and let me pass without buying the new ticket.


At the station we were leaving, there was a funny Guinness train, but it seemed to mostly be used by the maintenance crews. I wonder if they used it to keep the beer cold while doing their work.


Here is Victoria on the platform. The tracks were very straight as you can see, so they seemed to go off into the distance.

Today on the radio I heard about the Lovely Cup, which is something they are doing in Sheffield to celebrate St. George's Day. St. George's Day is a bit like St. Patrick's Day, but without the beer. One would think with a dragon as the symbol, they would be able to do something much cooler than the Irish, with a little green man as a symbol. Instead, St. George's Day has somehow gotten associated with racism (England for just white people rather than immigrants). The result is that a lot of people have mixed feeling about the English flag and St. George's Day.

To try to encourage unity and a pride in Sheffield and England, the City Council has introduced the Lovely Cup tradition. Apparently one of the kings a long time ago had his drink poisoned by someone else at the court. After that happened, they came up with the idea for the cup. The cup is so large you have to use two hands to hold it (so you can't stab anyone while holding it). It was also passed around the room so that everyone had to drink from it, making poisoning it effectively suicide.

On the radio they said bringing back this cup for St. George's Day was a neat way of building trust and friendship in the community. I'm all for having ceremonies like this, but surely the history of the cup is more about mistrust than trust.

Yesterday's weather was pretty weird, with the snow alternating with sun every 10 minutes or so. But today seemed rather sunny until about 30 minutes ago when the snow just started pouring down. It's a bit like hail but really soft. It's even starting to stick to some of the walkways, so who knows what will happen if it keeps up tonight.

In a rather bizarre turn of events, a huge wind storm swept through last night and brought with it snow. So it is now snowing, after having been getting warmer and warmer for the last few weeks. Doesn't seem likely to stick though, as it is still going to be 7 degrees today.

In the news today was the verdict about the shooting of a British convoy by US planes in Iraq. I don't think many people have been talking about it, but the other week a news agent did stop me and say "One question since you're American: was it murder or not?" I didn't know what he was referring to at the time, but I had heard of the story on the news, so I told him that I wasn't really sure, but that the US government should've been more forthcoming with the evidence (they kept delaying and delaying for years for no good reason). It did scare me a bit the tone of voice he was using, as it was a bit angry. The verdict said that it was an unlawful killing, but the coroner seemed to be blaming the pilots. Having heard the transcripts, it does seem like the pilots repeatedly asked if there were friendly targets in the vicinity, and were told no by the control room, so it seems like the control room or the communication mechanisms were really at fault. Anyway, I hope there's no crazy anti-US fanatics wandering around looking for someone to blame.

I have changed my blog template, as the old one had become broken, and the new one has many more features. Comments and archiving should work again now. I may tweak the appearance as I decide what I like or don't like.

Here we are in our new lovely jackets!

I guess you could see it in the US too, but we had a full lunar eclipse on March 3rd. I tried to take a picture, but failed miserably. My friend Robin took a whole spread of cool photos of it.

Several weekends ago we got a nice treat. I won a free massage for two in a competition at work. The massage therapist operates out of her home, which was just down the street from us. It was very convenient, and I think it helped relax us both. Victoria was probably the more stressed of the two of us, as she has to do lots of preparation for her school lessons all the time. I think at least Victoria will be going back in the near future. While she was getting her massage, I did my best to decipher the rules of rugby (no small task) in the living room.

One thing we noticed is that Victoria was having serious back pain issues as a result of lugging around too many materials in a small backpack. So two weekends ago I bought her a larger, padded backpack to help reduce her pain. I think it seems to be working, and she really likes her new bag. It may have something to do with a general bag fetish as well.

While we were in the camping goods store, we looked at a new coat for me, but I didn't see anything I was ready to buy. But last weekend I noticed the same store was having a 50-70% off on winter coats. I managed to find one I liked for half price, so that was great. It is a wintery coat, but you can remove the internal fleece so it can become a lightweight rain coat in the summer. I realized I have had my red jacket for over 10 years I believe. I was probably overdue in buying a replacement. I'll take a picture of it sometime and add it to the blog so you can see the new grey jacket.