A few things I’ve been thinking about this week. The fiftieth post of a series of fifty-two.

For most of this week, the temperature in Newcastle has remained stubbornly subzero all day long. Our front door froze shut a couple of times and needed a good shove. Some of our outside pipes required defrosting more than once after icy blockages tripped the boiler. The wheelie bin was so firmly iced shut that I couldn’t persuade it open.

The layer of ungritted ice across most footpaths prevented me from walking to work for fear of slipping. One benefit of the local electric buses is that they’re heated before they’re sent out, so even the first services are pleasantly toasty. I’m not someone who typically feels the cold, but it’s been… cold. And I’m lucky enough to be able to afford to put the heating on.

On days when we have broken freezing point and some of the ice has melted, I have walked home from work. One wander was in freezing fog. I can’t remember ever experiencing that magical phenomenon of being surrounded by floating specs of ice glinting in the light before, but I surely must have.

While watching a medical education session online this week, I had the disconcerting experience of a question being put in the “Q&A box” by a “Simon Howard” that wasn’t me. It was, at least, a good question. There are three of us on the GMC register, so I wonder if it was my GP doppelgänger or my neurologist doppelgänger? From the question, I’d guess the former… but then perhaps they were in an allied profession. This wasn’t a session exclusively for doctors, and from misdirected emails to our very similar NHS mail addresses, I know there are non-medical Simon Howards out there too.