Cabin Fever - HELP!

I'm getting cabin fever. Seriously.

It is now the fourth day of being stuck in the snow and at the rate the snow is still coming down there are at least another two days to go. I'm not totally snowbound. I can walk off the mountain (or, like yesterday toboggan down 400 feet (in altitude terms) of mountain at ridiculous speed, shrieking like a loon) and hitch a lift to pick up supplies. This means that I'm not reduced to eating my shoes or anything in a Stalingrad style. However the inability to be independent and choose when and where I go, and for how long, is astonishingly frustrating.

I have caught up on all my chores. I've finished my work, thought about doing the filing. I've painted the second coat of paint on the bathroom, and painted all the beams in the house so that they aren't all black and glowery but elegant and taupey instead. I've fed the birds and plucked the brace of pheasant I had. I've cleaned the kitchen floor and watched nearly everything on my sky + box. I've read a book of John Updike short stories and finished A Thousand Splendid Suns. The Loyal Hound and I have been tobogganing just for the hell of it, rather than for transport purposes. This afternoon I think I will throw everything out of my wardrobe that I keep pretending I will fit again and hide it all in the car which has currently turned into a snowy storage depot. I am soon going to be forced into writing my own great novella just to pass the time.

More importantly my secret stash of kit kats is running low and I may have to resort to making fudge to keep me going. In addition the Loyal Hound is addicted to the snow and spends the entire time nagging me to let him go outside and play in it, again.

I watch the news and see reporters across the country discussing in all seriousness the fact that 'it has stopped snowing here in outer Cambridgeshire' or 'there are at least 4 inches here in the local town and people are having to walk to the shops' and I wonder if they even know that there are those of us who are quietly going crackers with genuinely limited access to the rest of the world.

So, entertain me, amuse me, make me feel connected to the rest of the world. Please!

Paper Mountains

I am sitting at my desk and between me and my computer is a mountain of receipts that I absolutely have to wade through. For the last six weeks I have shoved receipts into every pocket, niche, book and bag that has been nearby, saying to myself as I did so that I would remember exactly why that one was important. I have finally gathered them up and am faintly horrified at the scale of the job ahead. So, naturally instead of dealing with them I thought I would blog instead. Me? Evade important stuff? How could you suggest such a thing.

In addition to the receipt mountain, to the left of my computer lie last years accounts that need to be finished and delivered to the accountant. I had good intentions of getting this done by the first week of December but the will to do so evaporated like snow on a Bahamaian beach and there the pile sits, staring balefully at me whilst I alphatesize my rubbish and do everything I can think of rather than my accounts.

I know I will be on a high for at least a week when I finally tackle both these piles. They have been niggling at the back of my mind for so long now that the sense of relief when they are done will be overwhelming. I may even do a jig in the snow to celebrate.....

Right. I'm going to do it now. Really, I am......