Icicle race

A day of dull battles against bureaucracy and the cold. And of pastry (apple pastries, pear and roquefort pastries and a re-pastried second time round steak and ale pie). Also of Conor running downstairs shouting "I can't wash my hands, there's no water in the bathroom and there's an icicle on the tap." Sigh. Seems that Mr B's decision to turn the heater off in the bathroom (for the quite sound reason that it is expensive to run and doesn't have much apparent effect as it is located directly under a big hole in the ceiling that leads, ultimately, to the sky) had consequences after all. A smaller heater has now been located in a more convenient spot.

Yesterday I spotted a new bird in the garden, and was much mocked by Mr B and Katherine for my description of it as being 'like a female chaffinch but with a black and white stripey head' - which I thought was quite a good description. They pointed out that it could - given my rubbish eyesight for small brown things on a brown background - have been a tit standing near a chaffinch. But this morning I was proved right when Mr B saw the same bird. No identification yet, but I lurked near the window with a camera in case it came back. It didn't, but I did spot a cirl bunting, which Mr B had never seen before. So there you go. I'll put a pic on flickr later if I get round to it.

Yesterday's blip will be posted soon. Mr B is back in a routine of watching nature shows with the kids on my computer in the evening, so I don't get to my blip machine when I want to. Still it does give me lots of quiet time to get the washing up done. So that's nice.