Anyone for Tea?

Despite the absence of even one expected snow flake, I can tell within minutes of getting out of bed, when I see the metal blind cords swaying alarmingly at the window and feel my feet encased in a wintry draft, that it is a freezer of a day.
Five windows in a small turret afford wonderful 180 degree vistas but also deliver a regular air stream from all the airts, and this morning's is vicious and icy.

The world outside the five windows is in cheerless monochrome, without even the bright colours of umbrellas to enliven the scene.
People, leafless trees and distant tenements merge into one dun coloured backdrop to the tired looking grass sprinkled with frozen puddles.
Only occasionally does a red anorak break through the gloom.

But wait...... I see a crocodile of small yellow waistcoated schoolchildren dancing and jiggling their way along a path; too early for the pantomime matinee, maybe the museum is in their sights. At any rate they don't seem to mind the gloom.

Just as I settle down to relax with the papers, and with my better half out on an errand, the bell rings, and standing on the doorstep is one half of a couple who His Lordship maintains he asked for coffee next Thursday. But lo and behold here is the visitor today, unexpected and unaccompanied, leaving a sick wife at home; fortunate indeed that I am in.
As you can imagine the mistake is not his Lordship's fault.

Mindful of the need to find something to smile at today, this piece of wit from an American humourist, did the trick:
Housework is unlikely to kill you, but there again, why take the risk!