Another freezing day at Grumpy Grange. I have a fan heater in my bedroom with a thermostat on. I switched it on while I was getting dressed yesterday morning and it said it was 9 degrees C. This is not warm. It was a two duvet night. Last night was a two duvet and fur throw night, plus a cardigan over my nightie.

I should be used to it. The house I grew up in in Liverpool had no central heating, no double glazing and I used to wake and that Jack Frost had decorated the inside of the windowpane as well as the outside. When the frost melted, puddles of frozen water would form on the sill and trickle down the wall. I quickly learned not to leave books on the window ledge. I would take my school uniform and undies into bed with me to warm them up before putting them on. The lino on the floor was freezing to bare feet. I had a convector heater but was only allowed to have it on for twenty minutes before bedtime. Just like Grumpy Grange, in fact.

Maybe the reason I can't put up with it now is that I'm 50 years older and more creaky and have got used to nice, warm surroundings in between. I can't wait to have my own place and be mistress of my own boiler and bath.

Health Catch-up

Sore finger: ouch. Must stop playing so many computer games.
Piles: double ouch. Must stop eating porridge, aka Scottish concrete.
Back: minor ouch. Must buy new computer chair.
Feet: medium ouch. Have been wearing wellies a lot, which contain no arch supports. Nerve in left foot is throbbing like mad and I couldn't bear the bedclothes on it last night.
Hair: recovering its condition after four swims turned it to straw.
Skin: extra dry and itchy because of fan heater, necessary as Mr Grumpy won't have the radiators on.
Stomach: okay for the last few days. Miracle! Perhaps it's due to all that porridge.

New Specs

I have been wearing the same pair of glasses for five years. Three years ago I had my eyes checked and the prescription altered slightly, but when I saw myself in the new frames, I immediately went back to my old ones.

I am very short-sighted, -6.75 in one eye and -4.50 in the other. I also have astigmatism. This racks up the cost of a pair of glasses to well over £300. As any myopic person knows, thick lenses distort the way your eyes look to others, making them look small and piggy. Wide frames accentuate this, making it look as if someone has seized the part of your head your eyes are set in, in a vice and squeezed, making that part of your head much narrower than the rest of your face. It is not a good look. On BBC1 News, they often use a political journalist who is extremely myopic and the effect is there for all to see.

A Chinese friend tipped me off about Tokyo Washin, a Japanese optician in Regent St who she really rated. I toddled along and am now the proud possessor of a wonderful pair of new lightweight specs, the lenses of which have been carefully crafted to lessen the milk bottle bottom effect.

I am very pleased with the look, but now I have to get used to them. They are varifocals, but the place where the reading and distance lenses meet seems to be set higher up than in my previous specs, so I feel I am having to move my head around all the time to see things clearly. Also, I opted not to have those lenses that go dark in the sun. My last specs had developed Reactolite fatigue so that they never went quite clear. Suddenly, I feel as if I have splashed iced water into my eyes 'cos everything is sparklingly clear.

I have put a pair of trendy black and lime green frames by, and am going to have them made up into distance only with Reactolite, or whetever version they use. It'll cost me another £300+, but then I shall be prepared for everything. I do miss the feel of my old specs, though. They had moulded perfectly to the shape of my nose and I hardly noticed I was wearing them, whereas these seem to pinch and irritate like a pair of new shoes, as opposed to comfy old slippers. Hmm. I've been wearing these new ones for all of twenty minutes now. Maybe I should get used to them gradually. Where did I put my old specs? Aaaaah, that's better!

A cold February birthday

My daughter Rowan at eight months old. Happy Birthday, darling.

Brrr. I am sneezing and freeing in Grumpy Grange. I woke around 4am with a splitting headache, took a pill and wasn't quite warm enough to fall back into slumber, so I put the electric blanket on for a while, then got up and slung my dressing gown on top of the bed. Next time I opened my eyes, it was 9.05, when a series of sneezes propelled me up and about.

The temperature in my office is only just above 50F. I am wearing thermals with two layers
on top and just can't get warm. I can't concentrate on work - I have another book to edit. My fingers are too cold to type of the notes from last night's excellent Soc of Authors talk on getting forensic detail right in crime novels. And I'm still sneezing. If I avoid catching a cold, it'll be a miracle.

My dear daughter, who I have known for a whole four years now since NORCAP helped me find her, is 40 today. Unbelievable. I only feel 40 myself; well, perhaps 45. She says she feels 28. Hard to believe that 40 years ago, in weather just like this, snow on the ground, I gave birth to her after a dresdful 36 hour labour. She was born with the cord wrapped round her neck, and was a horrible blue-grey colour and I thought she was dead. I lay there with a dull, leaden feeling in my heart. I can remember thinking, as a despised 'unmarried mother', that if she were dead, it would be problem solved, I wouldn't have to make the ghastly decision about adoption. They rushed her off to give her oxygen and then pronounced her very much alive. For which I am now incredibly grateful!

I remember ringing my mother from the ward. "I've had the baby," I said. "It's a - " The phone was slammed down the other end. My mother didn't want to know. My father didn't know I'd even been pregnant. When he did find out, I got a severe tongue-lashing and was ordered to marry the first decent man who asked me and never let this kind of disgrace befall the family again.

What a huge difference 40 years has made. If I had given birth to her now, married or not, nobody would have turned a hair and I would have had no difficulty finding somewhere to live. I'd even have got state help. Only two years after having Rowan, as I christened her, councils started offering flats to single mothers. I had just missed out.

Both of us have had our difficult times, but the great thing is that we finally met, and bonded. Though nothing can make up for those lost years of child-rearing, the joys of cuddling and playing with my infant daughter, of opening her up creatively by introducing her to poetry and music and art, like my own mother did. But her adoptive mum - who incidentally was abandoned by her own husband and left to bring up two adoptive children on her own ("I ended up a single mum, too," she told me) - did a marvellous job, probably a better one than I could have done.
So now I have a gorgeous grown-up daughter called Rhiannon, but still a tiny blonde baby called Rowan forever nestles in my heart.

Rowan and I in the pub on the day we met for the very first time.

Snow!

The garden, taken from an upstairs window

Can you spot the snow bunny?

Is it skating, I wonder?

It's been decades since we had a decent snowfall, so let's enjoy it while it lasts! Here are some pics I took this morning.

Chilly!

Ooh, ooh, it's minus two
and snow hath froze
upon my nose
and feline pawprints
speck the deck.
I wrap a scarf
around my neck
and on my feet
tonight in bed
I'll wear thick socks
and on my head
a fleecy hat -
or p'raps a cat...
although the sharp claws
might descend
and my hot water bottle rend,
and I shall wake,
my slumber spent
and think I've had
an accident.
And on that note
I shall decease.
I meant desist -
and I'm not pissed!
(Oh, yes you are,
says Mr G.
How should he know?
He just drinks tea.)
I think the snow's
gone to my head.
I shink I'll shtagger
off to bed.

Weird dreams

I'm starting to worry about myself. Last night I dreamed I was snogging the cat! Those whiskers gave me quite a thrill. It reminds me that the first men I was ever attracted to had beards. My ex-hubby had a beard, too. Hmm. Am I a throwback to the Neanderthal era?