Snow glob

It's the shortest day of this benighted year.

There's a Great Conjunction tonight, not seen since the 13th century (the one in the 17th century was apparently not visible at night), so, of course, we've been socked in by a relentless grey sky pelting us with heavy rain and fat mashed-potato gobbets of snow.  

The ground was already saturated when the snow plummeted, and so the white stuff is not getting much of a purchase on the soggy ground.  It has managed to accumulate not far north of us; the buses in and out of the Saanich Peninsula have been cancelled, as have several sailings of the ferries.  

A friend of Double Leo Sister, whose only crime was venturing from Parksville for a medical appointment, and dropping off Demeter's gift, has spent the better part of the day trapped on the Malahat Highway, a road that follows the south-east coast of Vancouver Island through the Cowichan Valley, and by some heart-stopping chasms, and. if blocked by snow or the resulting accidents, is practically inescapable.

I limited my forays to miserable short slogs, and spent the morning taking advantage of the Resident Fan Boy's ill-advised trip to a shopping mall.  I slipped my treasure trove of presents into bags, and emptied the contents of the "rehearsed" Christmas stockings into old purses, suitable for hiding until Christmas Eve.  

Last week, I made a careful inventory of the RFB's collection of Doctor Who novels, and slipped into Russell's Books for four more to fill out his stocking.  I discovered a few days later, that the RFB, having run out of space in his designated and sacred Doctor Who bookshelf, has been adding his novels to a lower shelf in the dining room.  I checked today to see which books I'd duplicated.  All four, dammit.  Now I've got to sneak into Russell's with only three shopping days left - something I'd hoped to avoid.  (I'll stick the four duplicates into one of the many "little libraries" in my neighbourhood -- perhaps the one on my old street.)

On a brighter note, yesterday, I prepared the Christmas tourtière for freezing, so I rewarded myself this morning with an account at the Globe Theatre, in order to live-stream (Snow) Globe, this year's version of the annual Christmas play for children at the famous venue for Shakespeare's plays -- closed for business, along with all of London's theatres, by this new plague.

It's snippets of Shakespeare, snatches of modern Christmas songs, and written and performed by Sandi Toksvig, and contains wry wit, in-jokes, and much of the longing for contact that has beset rather more of us than usual this year.  I enjoyed it very much.

I'll go to the roof tonight.  The forecast is for clearing skies.