Wow, a Snowbear

Some more pictures from Croydon today. This is another overly optimistic shopfront. Doesn't that launderette make you want to go "Wow"?!

Nearby, this was someone's holiday (or at least winter) decoration. Is it a bear? Is it a snowman? A snowbear? It looks like they had plans for another one but ran out of canned snow.

We are definitely moving into winter. Here's our weather forecast for the foreseeable future (in Fahrenheit, obviously). Looks a bit monotonous, doesn't it? At least it's not going to freeze, which means the geraniums and the sage can stay outside.

Do you remember our friends Chris and Linda, who lived across the hall from us in Notting Hill? I've mentioned them several times here on the blog, mostly during the Brexit campaigns, when they were pro-Brexit and we were anti-. We used to get together for dinner every couple of months. Well, we got some bad news about a week ago. Chris, who was well into his 70s and has been in poor health for some time, died on Dec. 13 -- from Covid, which he presumably acquired in the hospital. He was vaccinated, but as I said, he had other health issues.

Of course we're sad about it -- mostly for Linda, who now must adjust to life on her own. (Chris and Linda used to bicker all the time, and Chris once told me that despite their decades of marriage he thought they were ill-matched, but you know how relationships are. No matter how fraught, they're bound to be mourned when they end.)

We bought Linda a card, and a co-worker who also knows them got them a card and gave it to us to deliver. Several days ago, I put the two cards in a single envelope and took them to the post office to mail. I even had the guy at the counter weigh them so I could be sure they had adequate postage. Imagine my surprise when they came back through our letter box a day or two later!

I could not figure out why. Frustrated, I took them back to the post office yesterday morning. The clerk looked the envelope over and said cryptically, "Sometimes they just don't read." She wrote TO above Linda's address and FROM above my smaller return address on the back of the envelope, and threw the whole thing back in the mail bag. So, fingers crossed, Linda will get it this time.

We're planning to go visit Linda after Christmas.

On the way home from the post office, I had a pocket full of change, so I decided to pop into a local bakery and spend it on some kind of sweet treat for dessert. I had £1.69, and I spied a chocolate cornflake bun -- sort of like a Rice Krispie treat -- priced at £1.60. Perfect! I chose it and paid the guy at the counter with my miscellaneous coins.

He looked at me with a confused expression and said, "It's £1.20."

I looked back at the sign in the display case, which definitely said £1.60, as did all the signs for the muffins and gingerbread cookies on that shelf. But I couldn't very well argue that I wanted to spend more, could I? So I'm still left with 49p in spare change. In the states I could have thrown it into the bucket of a Salvation Army bell-ringer, but we don't have those here. Back into the change bowl it goes.