Barack Obama. I have noticed that the recurring word used for him is ‘hope’. The other one should be ‘trust’. And he must prove himself to be trustworthy. I just hope that those people who have this hope in him do not find their hope misplaced but I have a feeling that their expectations of him and from him are far greater than can be achieved – by him or anyone else. I hope that I am wrong.

In the meantime I am constantly cold. I hate this weather. It has now gone to rain and, as you know if you are a regular here, when it rains here it does so for days. At the moment, it seems without end. And, as in the UK, for me, the combination of cold and wet is worse than just cold.

I am seriously thinking of looking again at where I live and whether it would not be better to be somewhere that is warm or, even, hot.

Last night, as I was taking the dogs out, the ground became at once slushy. But there was no snow. But it was enough slush to make it slippery. I noticed that the dogs coats had a covering of white, just like snow but not snow.

And then I saw that it was ice that was falling with the rain. Not hailstones which are hard and make noise (and can hurt/sting) but very small pieces of ice. Raindrops of ice that fell like rain, didn’t sound like hailstones and covered the streets and the cars in a sort of translucent white.

Anyway, eventually I found a quote that, I think, suits the current situation.

The key is to get to know people and trust them to be who they are. Instead, we trust people to be who we want them to be- and when they’re not, we cry.”

Having checked the internet it seems it is a quote from David Duchovny! Now there’s something I didn’t expect.