Belated Wednesday reading

A day late again, but at least I'm doing it this week...

What are you currently reading?

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley. Yes, I know, I'm the last person on the planet. So far, I'm enjoying it, although I'm not completely caught by it yet. Not 'meh' enough to put it down, but it's not quite managed to draw me in so far that I can't put it down. I suspect this might be as much to do with my current status - utterly fed up with being stuck indoors - as the book, though.

I also picked up The Proposal by Mary Balogh. I'm loving her Bedwyn Saga books and I've been trying not to eat all of them at once by interspersing them with other reads. This is one of her earlier books and it's showing - the writing isn't as skilled as I've grown used to, and the characters aren't as vivid. I don't hate it, though, and it hasn't hit any tropes that make me scream with frustration yet, so it's probably a finisher. We'll see.

What did you recently finish?

Lock In by John Scalzi was my most recently finished book. Thoroughly compelling plot and ideas that lingered, which is why I enjoy his work so much. Before that, it was Maplecroft by Cherie Priest, which isn't really my thing (too Lovecraftian) but the writing was great and for the fans of that kind of horror, it's probably perfect.

What do you think you'll read next?

I have no idea! I'll probably shake Mount TBR and see what falls out and catches my fancy.

So there was this guy with an axe...

In case anyone is wondering, I did finally get out of my house. Yesterday.

It involved a kind neighbour checking on me (because he hadn't seen any sign of me on Tuesday when everyone else was out clearing stuff) and bringing his axe to chop away enough ice to get my door open.

Yup, an axe.

And then he helped me chop away enough ice to get my car off the driveway so my plough guy could use his blade to get me a smooth driveable surface. This also involved an axe, multiple shovels, a box of kitty litter, and eventually a second neighbour to help push.

Just...I have never known a winter with this much ice. Nobody else in my office has, either. They were plotting to send a work party out to help me if my neighbours hadn't gathered around yesterday.

(Neighbour who checked on me felt guilty for not checking earlier. D'aw. I suspect he'll be checking on me a lot now. But as he freed me from my house, that's fine. I'll bake his family a big batch of cookies when the weather is less awful.)

Today I made the, frankly terrifying, drive to work. The temps have gone up and it's raining. At least for now. In the evening it's supposed to change to snow and then the temps will drop to -15C, so I'll probably be iced in again by morning. But at least I got to go out for a day. I'm hoping to get to the grocery store on the way home, so if I get stuck for another couple of days, I'll at least have food in.

Spring will happen one day, right?

If only it was just snow. It's the ice that's killing us right now.