Take a deep breath!

The first thick frost of winter settled over West Cumberland in the night. It’s beautiful but is so easy to forget how painfully cold scraping ice off the car windows is on the fingers. And how long it takes.  Di says that she always fills a plastic bag with warm water and rubs it over the glass and it works wonderfully, so I’ll try that next time.

 Keep Fit Class had already started by the time I got there but the new pulsing lunges were of tooth-gritting agony, so heat was generated.  I was the only one of us up for swimming afterwards and went down as usual to Lanthwaite. Because the still water was now relatively warmer than the air temperature, the surface was condensing into a layer of fine thready mist.
The moisture from a hot steaming bath, indoors, is one of life’s great blessings. It licks at the back of your throat, like a buttercup summer, and lubricates deep down into your lungs, easing any latent coughs and chills as you lie back and inhale.
The moisture from a cold steaming lake has a surprisingly similar effect, although there’s little incentive for wallowing. Mist fills your mouth and nose, cool as unscented menthol. Nasal passages do their job of warming, and wetness fills all the respiratory spaces. There’s Lake water inside and out.
Having such a calming experience was fortuitous as the afternoon was an exercise in how starting a simple 10 minute DIY job can, with a series of misfortunate events, turn into a 2 hour one.  

Sister’s kitchen strip light needs new motor
Walk up town to buy new motor
Assemble step ladder and attempt to replace motor
Motor fitting detaches and motor falls inside light casing
Sister 1 Find bag of tools
Retrieve motor with ball of sticky tape (plyers and fingers have not worked)
Strip light tube suddenly falls to floor but amazingly does not break
Why? One end of strip light holder is broken.
Find screw-driver. Take off casing. Lose dropped screw under fridge
Sister 2 mends holder with sticky tape braced with cocktail sticks
Put back motor fitting and casing
Attempt to fit strip light – its prongs are bent from fall so it won’t
Walk up town to buy new light.
Day light fading so needs sister 1 on ladder to hold torch, sister 2 to do job  and sister 3 to hand up tools
Attempt to fit new light. Drop it and bend prongs. Straighten prongs with plyers.
Prongs won’t insert.
Look up instructions on You-tube. Some are better than others.
Realise that when light originally fell out, the holder was twisted to hold position
Multiple attempts to twist inside of holder to release position so prongs will re-insert.
Re-insert prongs
Turn clockwise.  One bracing cocktail stick breaks – but the rest hold.
Turn on light
Excelsior!