Apart from my freaky german accent, clothing style, non-stick-insect physique and lack of cigarettes, one sure way you can tell I'm not local is how I behave in the snow. Locals hunch their shoulders, lean into the wind and look miserable. I'm walking along, head up (hood up - the locals seem to try to use umbrellas in the wind, how odd) with a spring in my step and a smile on my face. Clearly I am either drugged or foreign:)

Everything is quieter when it snows. A combination of the snow damping down ambient noise somehow, and people just being quieter. Maybe they are hypnotised by the swirling? The cat certainly was, though when we opened the door onto the balcony, she was curiously reluctant to actually go out and catch the flakes she'd been busy stalking.

Spent the long weekend rather like how I would have liked to have spent Christmas - reading, watching DVDs, going for walks, eating tasty treat-food (yum amaretti biccies), none of which was to anyone else's whims or timetable. I feel recharged.