As stale as yesterday's bread. As stale as last week's porridge. As stale as last month's stories!

Each day it is the same old routine. I get up, I break my fast with my family, I bid them a fond farewell and I trudge through the mud or ice or snow to the Great Hall. There, I play and sing and tell the old tales, and try to keep the clan's spirits from sagging beneath the great weight of winter. I play until my fingers can no longer feel the strings, then I sing until my voice begins to croak like the frog in the rushes. Then, I eat something and have some more ale. And some more ale and still more ale. With enough ale, I can drown the frogs and at least tell some stories until it's time to eat again.

Sometimes, Tissa and Kaelin join me for supper, but the Great Hall is a noisy and frequently rowdy place. She always leaves before things get out of hand. In the evenings, we sometimes get a chance to do a little dancing, but most of the time the lads at the warriors table are too drunk to do much more than brag about their fancy footwork.

A messenger came for Fenian at mid-winter, and he had to go off to Tara for some high level meetings with the War Chief's of several of the other clans in the area. I believe it had something to do with coordinating efforts to control the bandits. So, we are one storyteller short at the warriors table and his strong voice is missed at the singing.

Now that the day is spent and most have gone to their own beds or have made an impromptu nest in a corner, I am free to trudge back to my own little cot, and fall into bed alongside my Tissa. Another day to add to this seemingly unending string of days. And tomorrow will be another one, near enough like unto today to be it's twin brother. Spring will come, of that I am sure. It always has, and it always will. It just seems to be taking its own sweet time, this year.