I've just walked back from town through another fall of snow. This time it's soft and slushy and is melting as soon as it hits the ground.
Sheffield grips itself tight when it's winter. The buildings hunch over the roads and people cram into their cars and the buses until the traffic is a long, jammed, metallic string of colours and lights winding out of the city centre towards the suburbs. If you feel up to the 40 minute walk back to Millhouses, it takes you past fascinating junk and antique shops and endless, endless barbers. There's something about the communities that line Abbeydale Road that makes them fascinated with having their hair cut. And the barbers shops themselves are a mix of the mundane - plain walls, maybe a few fading example pictures and white ceramic sinks - and the colourfully exotic; one place has ornately carved mahogany surrounds for each mirror and dark leather seats, another is red and chrome like the inside of an American diner and is filled with young asian guys who look like boxers.
It's good to have some time on my hands and just walk. I decided to take these two days as annual leave. It gives me a chance to finish off some work and start to untangle the christmas tree lights, though I think the cats are going to have a good go at re-tangling them again. It also means I can try to get the guttering fixed where the snow levered it off the wall. Every time I go outside, I'm getting a cold shower of rain and melted snow. Good for the soul, but not for anything else.
Sheffield grips itself tight when it's winter. The buildings hunch over the roads and people cram into their cars and the buses until the traffic is a long, jammed, metallic string of colours and lights winding out of the city centre towards the suburbs. If you feel up to the 40 minute walk back to Millhouses, it takes you past fascinating junk and antique shops and endless, endless barbers. There's something about the communities that line Abbeydale Road that makes them fascinated with having their hair cut. And the barbers shops themselves are a mix of the mundane - plain walls, maybe a few fading example pictures and white ceramic sinks - and the colourfully exotic; one place has ornately carved mahogany surrounds for each mirror and dark leather seats, another is red and chrome like the inside of an American diner and is filled with young asian guys who look like boxers.
It's good to have some time on my hands and just walk. I decided to take these two days as annual leave. It gives me a chance to finish off some work and start to untangle the christmas tree lights, though I think the cats are going to have a good go at re-tangling them again. It also means I can try to get the guttering fixed where the snow levered it off the wall. Every time I go outside, I'm getting a cold shower of rain and melted snow. Good for the soul, but not for anything else.