In the depths of this chilly English winter, the wheelhouse of the Nutmeg of Consolation stays very toasty. At the higher altitudes, that is. But down at floor level, a draft whistles up through the old wooden floorboards, and after a few hours of relative stillness while I work at my desk, my feet turn to blocks of ice. On more than one occasion I have had go come back in the house and pour myself a bowl of hot water to douse them in, before venturing back out to the lifeboat.

Even a pair of thick woollen Scandanavian oversocks—knitted by the mother of a gent who gave them to me to a recent 50th birthday fan gathering—have not been warm enough to stave off the cold. Perhaps I am missing some vital ingredient (vodka?)

But help is at hand in the form of these fabulous USB POWERED HEATED SLIPPERS that I have just ordered from Amazon.co.uk. They have individual controls for each foot, in case you ever want to BBQ one foot while the other chills out. And because they will plug into USB ports on my computer which in turn is powered off the Nutmeg’s wind turbine and solar panels, my little extravagance will even have a zero carbon footprint! (no pun intended.)

I’m afraid my blog and the Forum were kaput for a few days, due to no fault of mine or the Webmistress’. Our server hosting company took a few days to respond to us but have since been very helpful and apologetic. But now we’re back. C’est la vie!

On a positive note, over the weekend I had fun at a local Burns Supper where I was invited to give a speech called the Toast Tae The Lassies, while Kathleen gave The Lassies’ Reply. The assembled company drank malt whisky and ate copious amounts of haggis, and I told dirty jokes and finished up playing and singing a few verses of a ~230 year old Robbie Burns song, ‘Green Grow The Rashes’, just my un-amplified voice and an acoustic guitar. It was terrifying, but very good for me. I didn’t spot any cameraphones and I’m praying it doesn’t show up on YouTube or you will all blackmail me for years to come.

My former keyboard player Mike Kapitan spotted this in an antique shop! But it’s about 5 years less antique than this one…..

There’s a freezing fog tonight, and it turns the Nutmeg into a lighthouse.

I think I need one of these on the back of my car!