Herring of Sleet

Another rather tiring day. Alas, not from physical exertion, which might actually cheer me up, but mental exhaustion. Another cold and grey day, too. Supposedly another winter storm is headed this way, bringing the dread Wintry Mix and possibly more snow too. The roofer came and inspected. It is as I thought: a thick layer of ice has impeded the way to the roof gutters, so whenever the sun shows its face and melts a bit of snow. it trickles downward toward the ceiling. The advantage of a dark and cold day is that everything freezes up again, so it stops dripping. The roofer said that he won't be able to do anything for two or three weeks. He has too many people with the same complaint, and the weather is not suitable for getting much done on the rooftops. Then he'll come back and replace the flashing and so forth and so on. But when there's another onslaught of ice and snow, I imagine the same thing will happen again. There's job security for roofers.

While the Sparrowhawk was at the gym, I removed the ornaments from the tree and packed them up. I broke one of my favorites. The funny thing was that I had a premonition it would break, so I very carefully used both hands to disentangle it. And then it slipped from my grasp, tumbled to the ground, and smashed. It was a melancholy operation, anyway. Tomorrow we'll haul the tree back out to the parking and release it back to the wild. Or to the municipal woodchipper and compost heap, at any rate.

And so farewell to my 72nd year. I can't complain of it. It was certainly full of incident and company, and I was grateful to have it. Into the box with you now! I wonder what will happen next.