Hibernating Saturday Homeboy

The snow is lying deep and heavy this morning, the sky a uniform gun metal grey, unusually I have a headache, as I don't tend to get them. Norman and I have our full English breakfast and then I retire to the Garden Room to drink my coffee. I have an email from Jackie saying snow is expected over there this afternoon, so I postpone my visit this afternoon and am browsing the Guardian, when I get a call from my cousin, Michael, in Germany. He is reporting lots of snow in Germany and wants to know when I intend to visit for the skiing, provisionally I suggest the end of February, subject to finding reasonably priced flights, as this sinus infection has me a bit under the weather at the moment. After showering and dressing, I brown some braising steak and onions in the frying pan, add some oxo and water and transfer it to the slow cooker and then set off with Normy for a walk round the fields. I carry the old boy until we arrive at some tyre tracks through the snow and set him down. It is not so cold today, the temperature hovering around freezing, and Norman trots along happily behind me, as we make our way through the snickett onto Carr Lane. Fortunately other walkers have preceded us and we follow in their tracks, over the little wooden bridge over the dyke and into "Almost Straight Wood", the heavy snow has brought down a couple of conifers that lie at oblique angles across the path, but we manage to negotiate our way round them, and continue on our way. This is one of our favourite places and Normy enjoys a good sniff around, checking out the scents of rabbits, squirrels, deer and of course, other dogs. As we emerge from the woods we encounter my neighbour Betty with her schnauzer, Nelly and an older Lady, who it transpires was born in the village. We walk round the fields together, the older lady retailing us with tales of her childhood and pointing out paths that lead to various points, including the village of Weel, about two miles away, this path has been blocked for the last few years, as an elderly chap has put a gate across the path that crosses his land and apparently threatened walkers with his shotgun. The council have prosecuted him several times, but he still persists, so they seem to be waiting for nature to solve their problem for them. Apparently he is well in his eighties. We complete the walk and return home just after noon, my headache has subsided, and after giving Normy some biscuits, I make some tea and take it, along with a few oaties, into the garden room where I knock off a puzzle until it is time for the football to start on the radio. Hull are away at Peterborough and the match is on, despite the snow. Hull take the lead before halftime to an own goal by Peterborough, but then give away a penalty in the second half and come away with a draw. During half time I serve lunch, braising steak with mashed potato and red cabbage, cooked German style, with onions, apple and bacon. A perfect winter dinner and we still have some left for tomorrow, or perhaps Monday. After dinner I read more of Cormack McCarthy's Orchard keeper, but give up the effort after 120 pages or so, his early work is highly poetic, but is too loosely structured, and lacks narrative drive. He has not yet learned the more austere prose of his later work, that enhances, rather than diminishes, the poetic power of his fiction. "The slaughtering of his babies", is a discipline that he has still to learn in these early novels. Today has been a hibernating day, but tomorrow there is church in the morning, followed by lunch with Leslie and a visit to my granddaughters in the afternoon.