Snow day two

It snowed more heavily today than yesterday, but intermittently. We went out for another bracing walk after lunch. As the wind wasn't quite so severe, many more people were out walking streets empty of cars, the air noticeably fume free for a change. Few people in the neighbourhood have tried to take their cars out. The main road from town to Llandaff is driveable, albeit snow covered until there was a late pass by a snow plough, sullying the pristine snow. 

None of the shops were open, just the pubs and some cafes. Youngsters were sledging on the hillock at the far end of Llandaff fields. Some were sitting on the sled, others were lying flat, emulating the skeleton riders in the Winter Olympics. We were very  impressed to see a teenage lad standing on his tray-sled, as if he was on a snowboard. I wonder how many more we'll see trying this next time there's snow.

We went for a cup of tea to Canna Deli, one of the small retail units developed on part of the site of the Old Dairy, now mostly taken up by the Co-op. The address is Pontcanna Mews. I wonder if this pays homage to stables once on the site for the milkmen's horses? The place offers select niche market food products to buy and half a dozen tables for those who want a drink and a classy snack. Clare said she went out yesterday to get some porage oats from the Co-op, but found it was closed, as the staff were unable to get in. Canna Deli, however, was open and busy un-freezing customers with hot drinks. She asked if they had any porage oats, and initially was told they didn't have any. As she was leaving, however, the mager hailed after her and declared that he had a packet of Co-op porage oats he could sell her - presumably from kitchen stocks. How enterprising!

Not long after we'd got back home, and shed our outdoor clothes, I realised that I'd not yet taken my three month medication prescription to the Pontcanna pharmacy in KIng's Road, in preparation for my stay Malaga. A phone call established it was open, and I had half an hour to take the prescription there. So, I dressed up again and retraced my steps back to where we'd just been drinking tea, as the pharmacy is nearby, opposite our GP surgery. It was important to do this, as occasionally pharmacy supplies temporarily run out after a spate of demands. Deliveries might be delayed by the weather conditions if that happened, and I might end up short of supplies to fly out with on Tuesday. I should have thought of this days ago when I collected the prescription from the surgery, but I was on my way elsewhere at the time. I was thankful to be able to collect immediately. Number one on my travel preparation checklist now done.

I watched the last of the Scandi-crime series 'Rebecka Martenson - Arctic Murders' on Channel Four this evening. A sad, but rather ambiguous ending, ambiguous enough to leave open the possibility of a second season. The biggest unanswered question is the back story of the eponymous lead character orphaned young, raised by her granny in a hamlet in the far north of Sweden. How did she become a city lawyer? While temping during home leave in her childhood locality as a public prosecutor she shows a flare for unorthodox but successful detective work. Instead of returning to Stockholm to grow a new reputation, in the last frame of the series, she quits. Is it a love affair with her homeland? Or another character, who may or may not be dead at the moment? All will be revealed in due course, no doubt.