Last rose of 2020

My last rose of winter

 It's terrible cold ... even though the rain has stopped. The wind is quite violent, tossing tree leaves and plastic bags all around. But it's the cold that everyone feels. It's 8 degrees at 3pm though the sun is shining brightly. And tonight I guess it'll drop to 2 degrees. I couldn't sleep last night because of the cold. 

And ... some weather forecaster has predicted it might snow on Wednesday night, given the conditions that we have. I'd like that ... but from experience, I know it should rain for a couple of days first, then sleet and ice before snow comes. But who knows? From Spain to Greece, heavy snowfall is occurring and usually this blows into our country. The forecaster predicted that it would be light snow with no accumulation. That means we can see it fall but when it reaches the ground, it melts. Well at least it'll save me from shovelling the roof of the library. We didn't have snow last year, so a light dusting of snow would be nice.

The other day I pruned all our 10 pots of roses ... and hanging on was the last rose of 2020. Most of the leaves have dropped. A pink floral with a lovely yellow-white centre. Hopefully with this cold blast, it'll wake up the stumps to bud and blossom more this year. I'll have to fertilise them but the cold is dreadful outside. Maybe next week. 

Anyway I'm still in my room mostly. I'm feeling better though still weak. The cook left me some palestinian fusion food: spaghetti layered with rice and lentils, covered by caramelised onions. It's really weird but it tastes good. Apparently palestinians eat this often. Our former cook Nadia, now retired, cooked this several times before. 

Infection rates have hit 10,000 and the medical authorities say that the new strain is aggressive and rapid. It's struck many ultra-orthodox pregnant women, 5 of whom had to have ceasarean operations to save the babies. And thousands of ultra-orthodox students have been found to be positive, though the rabbis say it's all fake news thousands who have had their 1st vaccination have caught the virus.