Death Wish

The temperature this morning was appreciably warmer than yesterday and we saw the first signs of a thaw up here in Winterslow. Tom's bus was again not running to Test Valley School and Winterslow Primary was closed yet again. No attempts appear to have been made to sweep the snow from the playground. Sara needed to get into the Salisbury office to learn what fate now awaits her department and, in particular, her own role within it. Armed with a spade I helped dig her car out from its parking spot at the Village Hall and she managed to get out and on to the road at the first attempt. I returned home and, after ensuring we all had breakfast, started work on a number of projects on the company laptop - the principal one being to complete a Powepoint Presentation for the Insurance Health Claims Forum's meeting next week in London. The title? "Dealing with tricky death claims - a legal perspective". Topics within the presentation including such cheerful ones as suicide, coroners, murder and manslaughter. It's difficult to find amusing anecdotes without the fear of upsetting some member of my audience. I did, however, find the cartoon which appears on today's blog for my title slide. Mary went off to a friend's for most of the day and Tom was in and out of the house with one of his school friends. Tom and I had lunch of home made beefburgers. Sara phoned to let me know that the message which came through from the HR strategic review meeting. It confirmed what she expected - that she was to soon to be in the consultation pool for redundancy - after 22 years with the company. My day was punctuated with the usual spate of urgent emails, telephone calls and teleconferences including one with the Isle of Man. Whilst in the study I saw Karen, one of our neighbours, struggling to clear the snow up on the close. I couldn't sit at my desk and see her struggle so I went out and helped her for a while clearing the top of our driveway at the same time. This evening we had our house group which was a "freestyle" discussion on many matters but principally on the subject of modern consumerism and selfishness. As the group left, it started to rain but the forecast is for yet more snow (when will it ever end?) tomorrow. I am hopeful of getting to Dorking and back in time for the next Alpha Course at 7.00 p.m. having missed last week's.