Mud and Frost

More sunshine yesterday, a welcome development. I took Olga for a long walk on the Heath. We usually follow a circle that runs north toward Highgate and south again to Parliament Hill, but this time we changed up our routine. We avoided some of the areas near Highgate that get muddy -- in the winter and early spring, parts of the Heath are barely passable because they're so wet -- and we also skipped Parliament Hill because, frankly, Olga doesn't care about the view. She wants trees and squirrels.

So we stuck to the woodsy paths.

The leaves in the shadowy hollows were covered with frost. But despite the chill, tons of people were out, soaking up the sun. (At least as much as possible while wearing a coat.)

Holy mud-bog, Batman! See what I mean? Fortunately I have two pairs of Merrill shoes that work really well in muddy conditions -- my feet never get wet.

Back home again, I set up our new Olga-cams, which Dave bought for Christmas. They'll allow us to check on the house and the dog remotely, using an app on our phones. You may remember that we had some before, but when we got our new Internet router a few months ago, those cameras stopped working. The problem had something to do with the megahertz of the router signal -- I don't pretend to understand it, and no matter what I did, I couldn't get them to function again. Technology!

So, yeah, we have new ones.

I also finished Tina Brown's "Vanity Fair Diaries" -- finally. My slow pace wasn't Tina's fault. I loved the book.

Remember how she said "cavorting" is an underused word? Well, she later recounted writing a letter in which she called someone an "empurpled blowhard," and although she eventually regretted the letter, I think that's a fantastic term. "Empurpled" is definitely an underused word. I know several people who have a tendency to become empurpled. In fact, at times, I may be one of them.