Please, miss, I'm c-c-cold...

Monday lunchtime, back at work. The whole of Cambridge Cottage is freezing cold. Something went wrong with the heating over the weekend. In theory it is now working again but as yet there is no discernible difference in the temperature of the room. No-one here has a thermometer, so we can't tell for certain, but my guess is that by the end of the day we may just have reached the legal minimum working temperature. Luckily I come from hardy stock and don't object to working with my coat on...
Had a wonderful Christmas, doing very little, with my mum and elder brother. Ate rather too much, drank relatively little, took EXTREMELY bracing walks on the north Kent coast (in a howling north easterly gale), and talked. Read my Christmas present books (finished one and started the second, out of four, but one is an Editors' Dictionary so I probably won't settle down to read that cover to cover). Caught up on some sleep. Watched the birds on mum's assortment of birdfeeders. Counted the plants in flower in her garden on Christmas Day (18, down from the usual 23 or 24). Peace and quiet...
I've been asked why I have a link to "that dreadful right-winger Orson Scott Card"'s website. Ahem, well; I think he's a good writer and an interesting bloke. And he's fairly centrist, politically. Mormon's don't tend towards socialism, as a general rule, do they? I don't agree with some of his views, being non-christian and a dyed-in-the-wool leftie, but everyone has the right to hold their own opinions, and at least his are thought-through and coherently argued. I'd much rather be able to have an intelligent conversation with someone I don't agree with than be scared of them punching me. Heavens, I didn't agree with a great many of my late father's ideas about life, but that didn't stop me enjoying talking to him, nor for that matter loving him, even when I wanted to yell at him. How insufferably bland life would become if I only sought the company of those who shared my world view in every detail, and did nothing but echo my own words back to me. Not only bland, indeed, but extremely creepy, too. I find OSC's essays interesting, thought-provoking and entertaining.
No-one else has to follow that link if they don't want to. You don't have to follow the Geek, either. If you don't like it, don't look at it.
On the which for-me pugnacious note I'll take my dirty plate (Sainsbury's Instant Curry Noodles, a real cop-out lunch) to the kitchen and get on with some work.