i woke up at 5 this morning shivering, puzzled at how cold a night of rain can make the room, got up to shut the window, whereupon to my amazement, i saw that snow was coming down, not wispy drifting flecks of snow, but rain-heavy and rapid. i'd just packed away all my winter things under the bed, and now i'll have to burrow something out again. remember the opera, (or something) one of bao gong's cases, where a woman was wrongly charged and executed for murder, and she called on the heavens to witness her innocence, and the moment she was executed, the skies turned wintry and massive swirls of snow came down to engulf the village - so they had to reopen her case? april snow, it was called, which growing up made me think snow could never happen in april. well, not even that really, just how all last week and the one before the temperature was in the 60s and 70s and i could flounce about in skirts and dresses. i took a very hot and gratifyingly long shower, the sort of indulgence available only when the rest of the world is still asleep, and being embraced by steam and the feel of water on my shoulders breasts back was deeply pleasurable and i just couldn't make myself come back out into the cold of the bathroom and downstairs to my laptop to try to think of how to insert the secret links in the paper to make it all click.