Freezing Cold

Is how it's been for the past few days, with a cold spell plunging pretty much the entire country into the minuses. Roads, cars, and grass are all covered in a scintillating layer of thick frost. Frozen solid, even puddles ceased to be an inconvenience, becoming instead, a bloody hazard.

And out in the middle of it last night, was me, buzzing about, here there and everywhere. Slippety-sliding about on roads that resembled glass, losing all feeling in my fingers/toes, and generally shivering my arse off.

I had a couple of scares, notably when the wheels decided they wanted to go in directions other than straight forwards, but apart from that, and the aforementioned cold (which was enough to cover my scoot in ice while I was riding it) it was a pretty uneventful shift.

The walk back was amazing though. Everything covered in this frost made the entire place look as if it was made from frosted glass. Tree trunks, their branches, and every individual blade of grass shone as if illuminated from within, and the moon, complete with halo, was the brightest I had ever seen. Even the sky - at midnight - seemed to glow.

I've got to repeat the whole thing tonight, as I'm on the exact same shift.

In other news, the tablet PC is now working at close to 100%. Windows XP has been upgraded to service pack 2 and the majority of software I've installed (memory permitting) works just fine.
I've ordered the new batteries for both the TC1000 and the Ipaq, the total being some £40, and they should hopefully be here before long. The internet is no longer a problem. We couldn't get the internal wi-fi working, so my dad and I have skipped the entire issue by installing a PCMCIA network adaptor in the spare card slot, and we're using that instead, having disabled the internal adaptor.

The tablet sorely needs a memory upgrade, as at the moment, it will only run videos in windows media player at some 4 or 5 frames a second. Not an auspicious beginning, but something that can be fixed. Again, at a price.

But hey, is time to be going now. I want some time to myself before I have to go to work and freeze my arse off, again.