I'VE GOT CHILLS, THEY'RE MULTIPLYING......!

While Shetland children, their schools having been closed for most of the week, have been enjoying the prolonged sledging bonanza, most of their parents are weary of the apparently endless arctic winter, which refuses to release the islands from its icy grip and is thwarting practically every activity which involves leaving the comfort of their own firesides. The heaviest snow of the winter (so far) fell on Monday evening, putting an end to most people's aspirations of any kind of social interaction whatsoever, and, while people are finding life difficult, I can only speculate about, and be afraid of, the effect the conditions are having on the birds and animals.

Snow joke! The gallant snow-clearing crews of our local council have been doing their best to keep avenues of communication open, but even their best efforts were inadequate at times. Their vehicles are now displaying symptoms of the effects of prolonged hard use, and the clearance itself has its own unfortunate side-effects, such as ridges of cleared snow piled along the Lerwick kerbsides. These present difficulties for pedestrians trying to cross roads, and, for anyone with even slight mobility problems, negotiating one's way around town on foot takes on the nature of a mountaineering expedition.

"Oh, stop moaning, Tait!" I hear you say, in tones of chastisement, "Get your brushes out, and paint some snow scenes!". It might not be a bad idea at that, but my enthusiasm for artwork has been further curtailed by a stinking cold, which appeared in my tubes (there's a pun in there somewhere!) on Tuesday and has been with me since then. For most of the week, I have been dripping over everything, including my canvases - it adds nothing to the quality of the work applied thereon, nor, I suspect, to the value of any affected paintings.

Picture, if you will, the scene, at a time far into the future. A gallery assistant is accompanying a group of visitors around a Jim Tait retrospective exhibition, and he is explaining to the assembled company that "this painting of Lerwick harbour was part-painted, part sneeze-sprayed by the artist in late February 2010. The effect is similar to looking through a car's windscreen during a sleet-storm, and this is reputed to be the artist's only attempt at pointillism. He called the work 'Lerwick after Signac'. Moving on......"

No doubt my ailment and the snow will eventually disappear, as is the nature of things, but it cannot go fast enough for me and the rest of the residents of these ice-plagued islands. We are all yearning for a time when we can go about our business and recreation normally again. I observe, from the Met Office's excellent website, that they are predicting the temperature to rise to a balmy five degrees celsius in Lerwick tomorrow. In such sub-tropical conditions, the snow cannot fail to start melting, and, for thousands of snow-weary islanders, the thaw is long overdue.