They do snow well here

Reading all the reports about snow in my native country, I am so glad to be here in Bovinia, where, although it is currently -8°C, the roads are clear and not too icy. I don't know when the brave snow-plough people get up - I dread to think - but somehow it seems that they have always got there before I have. What a change from chaotic Belgium last winter! There, one was never quite sure if normal life would carry on... rubbish remained uncollected for weeks, our little street was a ski slope which then froze into an elongated ice rink, noone appeared to use winter tyres. On one particularly snowy day, I remember the side of the main road being littered with abandoned or still-occupied, wheel-spinning cars. The snow did make everything look more beautiful, however. It covers a multitude of sins. Even the most grey and depressing industrial estate can look attractive with a layer of snow on it. Then the snow melts and we're back to slushy reality.

Anyway, enough about snow! TGIF! A long week draws to a close. It's three weeks till Christmas, chaps. Our challenge tomorrow morning is to find a Darth Vader costume in an alpine town with only five shops. It isn't that we can't get one on line. We just feel like undergoing the horrors of Christmas shopping, just to put us in a festive mood. Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without pushing through crowds of people in a hot and sweaty department store. Plus it is the only time of the year when people will tolerate Slade or Shakin' Stevens on the radio.