There is no winter without snow

 

Il n'est pas d'hiver sans neige, de printemps sans soleil, et de joie sans être partagée // There is no winter without snow, no spring without sun, and no joy without being shared

While the Canary Islands are being slowly getting covered by a thin reddish layer of calima dust, Moscow is blanketed by a record-breaking layer of snow. My sister is sending me snowy pics of the beautiful, if very cold, winter they are having. 

Some of the photos show a small boat on the river Moscow. It stayed there for a few months already, caught in the ice by the first big frost. Now, with all the snow around it, it positively looks like something that belongs to a book on polar exploration. 

The phrase above is a Serbian proverb. Going by it, I didn't have a single winter in the last few years, if we discount the snow on Teide. No shortage of sun, though.

Poor Min, poor Min, poor Min

She was the roughest, toughest frail

The Inktober prompt from today - frail - is kind of difficult again. While looking for an inspiration, I checked out the meanings of the word and was pleased to be reminded that one of them was simply "a woman". Minnie the Moocher came to mind and I did a little research. I sort of wish I didn't but well, here goes:

"Minnie "The Moocher" has died. She was a familiar figure In downtown Indianapolis. A 82-year-old woman whose real name was Minnie Gayton, she acquired the quaint nickname of "The Moocher" by regularly begging food from grocers and carting it off in a baby buggy. She slept in doorways, on porches and in garages. During the record-breaking blizzard, her body was found on a porch, blanketed with snow. She died from exposure"

So here she is, the toughest frail,  pushing her baby buggy full of food through the blizzard.

And to make somewhat French-er, the French equivalent is "frêle". Example of use from Michel Eyquem de Montaigne - La plus calamiteuse et frêle de toutes les créatures, c'est l'homme// The most unfortunate and frail of all creatures is the man.
 

Un flocon

Tu as un flocon sur le bout du nez ! // You have a snowflake on your nose!

Today’s picture is straight from my “French word of the day” email. ’Tis the season to be jolly, etc. You know. “Jolly, with mistletoe and holly and other things ending in ’olly” (Terry Pratchett, Hogfather).

We are are nearly done with our pre-Christmas exams, and Thursday is the last day of classes before the break. We have already got about a hectare-of-amazonian-forest worth of papers each to study over Christmas, which I fully intend to do, of course.

The cat, as it happens, doesn’t have a visible nose. So this is probably your only chance to find out where his nose is supposed to be.

Pictures of snowflakes @ Shutterstock.

Il neige

Il neige // It’s snowing

Just a small pic about snow and dark winter nights.

Pictures of snow @ Shutterstock.