Today has not been a good day. The fact that I'm writing this at 1 o'clock in the afternoon using a pen and a paper during the time I should be working is a small indication that things are not quite how they should be.

It all started when the alarm clock on my mobile buzzed and made me climb from my warm comfortable bed to the cold uncomfortable world. The cold, my sleepy brain immediately (i.e. after about five minutes) tells me, means that it's colder outside than it was yesterday since the heating systems in the flat still work. I stumble toward the shower and find that the bathroom light doesn't work. Again the brain informs me of a possible malfunction in the lamp since it has been hanging on some wire for ages, I've just been too lazy to find anyone who'd come and fix it. In my infinite wisdom I leave the door open to catch the light of the hallway. The fault in that logic is only obvious after the shower - the open door lets all the warmth out and I am left with an incredibly cold bathroom.

When climbing out of the shower I was faced with a new problem: the shower was leaking! It's not from the drain or anything like that; it's from the edges that touch the wall. There used to be some stuff that prevented the leaking but apparently it had finally given in. This arrangement was meant to be only temporary and someone was supposed to come and redo my bathroom with tiles - the only problem is no-one's done it yet.

I dried the leak and got on with my morning routine. Nothing went wrong until I decided to listen to Pink Floyd on my way to work. Mental note: never listen to slow melancholy music if you have a bus to catch! Naturally I slowed my stride to match the music and therefore got to the bus-stop only to see the bus leaving. I had to take another bus which was a lot slower and took me nowhere near my workplace. I almost missed my stop since I was reading but still managed to jump out at the last minute clutching the book. And that's where I found it was snowing!

Now, most people consider the snow to be a good thing. Not me! I have nothing against cold and snowy weather per se. If it came and stayed I'd welcome it with open arms. Sure, it marks the end of summer more effectively than birds flying south but it would be OK if only we had a good winter to compensate. A winter where snow would fall around the beginning of November and then would stay until March. Where weather would be just a few degrees below the freezing point so that the snow wouldn't melt but I wouldn't freeze to death either.

Well, that's definitely not the case here! We get the first snow which melts almost instantly. Then it gets warmer just before the second snow. There's more of it this time so it won't melt so easily but turns into sludge instead. The sludgy weather goes on for awhile only to be replaced by a weather so cold no-one exits their home voluntarily. Since the cold immediately follows the sludge, it freezes and creates giant skating rinks that are deceptively covered with snow just so you'd think it's not slippery when stepping onto the pavement/road/stairs. Naturally you're wrong and end up with multiple bruises (best case scenario) or multiple broken bones (worst case scenario).

After that comes the winter I dream of, where the snow is falling and where everything is covered with a white blanket. In fact, by the end of that stage there's so much snow that I feel like summer is something I've only seen in my wildest dreams. But that part will soon pass since the sludge era is bound to return and continue well into April.

These were the thoughts running through my head as I was walking through the falling snow with my not-so-waterproof and definitely non-winter footwear.

To add to the insult of this already sucky morning my computer refused to log me in. I finally got a hold of the guy maintaining our server and he suggested I reboot since sometimes the computers tend to lose connection with the server. I did that but to no avail. I called him again and he told me he'd check out the server as soon as he was in front of a computer again. That finally happened at one o'clock.

In the meantime I did everything I could do without having access to my files (which is not a whole lot when you're an accountant) and then started writing this entry. This day has nowhere to go but up!

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