Translation of Manschette

I like writting you messages although most of it is really pointless. I mean it is very good for my English studies, but except that I could not understand why you would be interested in reading it.
The bus was supposed to leave at around 4 o'clock in the afternoon, so that I still had two to three hours to organize. I went for lunch at some strange place and hardly ate as it was too ugly.
The ice blocks that usually break off during the summer started already to break off in spring due to the Global warming. The glaciers in general were loosing volume as we were told and as we could see.