[tramvai of dreams] the joke's on me

Sometimes I just love this country.

Item 1

Yesterday received an urgent call to come to the uni today and see the Dean. Never happened before.

Today, my friend comes over for his regular Thursday morn coffee so we thrash it out. Could be a conference next week they want me to speak at, could be all my absences due to illness this semester, could be the complete reorganization of the uni and the election for rector.

Could be something more dire - my registration within the country [the tit-for-tat thing going on vs Britain at the moment]. We settle on it being a big request and so I get a taxi into there, due to the seriousness of it all.

Turns out to be the office wanted my signature on the summer leave application although why I even need to do this, given that I'm part time, I don't know. Still it gives me holiday me, which is good..

What!!! All the panic, all the long faces everywhere.

Item 2

Tram. After experiencing the greatest concentration of honeys in one place ever [the cafe], it was down to the tram. Missed one but it was a 7 and so it didn't matter. There are four going past this stop - the 7, 20, 11 and 19. The first two are useless as they go elsewhere, the latter two are good.

Next tram which comes is a 7. No matter, we often get this and it's still peak hour so it's OK.

Next tram which comes is a 7. No matter, they were obviously banked up somewhere down the track and a 19 will come soon.

Next tram which comes is a 7. No matter but it's now getting a little chilly, minus 9 and time for the gloves and hood.

Now there's a gap of around 40 minutes [the other trams came at 2 minute intervals], during which the gloves prove themselves inadequate and the corduroys are stuck to the legs. Time to walk vigorously up and down.

Next tram which comes is a 7. No matter, I wait for the door to open and ask if there are no 19s today. Driver shrugs.

Next tram which comes is a 7. I've noticed approximately 30 buses going past on the road 200 metres away and a constant stream of cars. Door opens and I call out for the driver to open the inner door. Passengers are staring at me on the roadside. "Where's the bloody 19?" I swear in Russian. They close the door in my face.

Next tram which comes is a 7 and I'm weeping by now but too cold to go up to the road for a car. memories of the other evening flood back.

Next tram is an 11 - it'll do. Huddled in one corner, the only task is to get some feeling back into the extremities.

Item 3

One of the fun things is to predict the temperature outside and then check it against the television temperature in the top corner of the screen in the cafe.

To do this, it's necessary to wear the heavy beanie first - no compromise here. Most people have a range of jackets but I have two - one down to about 12 degrees below and the other from about 15 downwards. I try to wear the lighter one and regulate inner temperature by wearing t-shirt and shirt or a jumper in rare circumstances. Usually I'd just opt for the heavier coat in that case.

All right, out of the uni and in two minutes, check the hands. If everything's neutral it could be anything from 0 to -5. If there's a freshness to the hands, it could be - 6 to -10. If it really needs gloves, it's below -10.

Today the hands were a bit fresh.

Next, check the grit on the snowy road. If it's working and the mud is slushyish, it's warmer than -10. If the powder snow is crusty, it's below -7. If the ice is hard and slippery, it's below -8. So, this puts it this evening from -7 to -10.

Next, the face but this depends on the wind. Today was a light icy breeze so it altered the calibration a bit. Usually you don't get bite to the face until -10 to -12 but with a breeze, you can lop 3 or 4 degrees off that.

I took a stab at -8 and went into the cafe. It was -9. I'd compensated too much for the breeze.

By the way, there's another fun game - drop the hanky in minus 30. Now we haven't had this for a few years but when it was around minus 32 or 33, the trick was to drop your handkerchief and the shape it was in when it hit the ground is the hanky sculpture it freezes into.

And don't kiss anyone in those temperatures.