Waking up to Spring

No alarm clock needed these mornings as the curious effect of the sloping field, walls and plain village weirdness is that the bleating of the new lambs, and some of the older ones for that matter, sound as if they're right outside my window. I suppose that, conversely, whatever noises I make may appear to them to be coming from very close-by too.

The moon was brown for a while tonight

The snow has almost cleared but what's left is extraordinarily crunchy as the temperature has dipped to minus something I don't want to think about. That's due to a clear, clear sky which provided a lovely view of the moon in a strange brown colour for a while tonight. It's more yellow now.

Still walking in the mist

See the rest in my the album In The Mist at this link.

I went for a walk in the mist

Yes. It snowed.

I knew it would. We'd had all those warnings and the app on my phone was telling me that the temperature was 0ºC and the humidity was 100% which did make me wonder whether that didn't mean that I would have to start growing gills. For a moment I thought there was just going to be a dusting and that would be it and I remember posting NN12 0/10 on the #uksnow website at one point. What always happens, though, is that as soon as you close the curtains it all comes down in a hurry which is what happened last night. I settled down to watch a film, went to sleep, went to bed and went back to sleep and woke up to this lovely looking white world outside.

When I was young and had a car that was so old that it didn't matter a great deal if you hit the occasional fence I enjoyed whizzing around Hertfordshire lanes or up and down the farm drive where I was brought up. In those days there were few other people on the roads anyway and many of them didn't mind that much if they got a few dents either. So you really could 'go for a spin' and it was useful practice to find out what happened when wheels didn't grip or one or other end of the car decided to go in a different direction to what you might have expected. I still get that urge to set off on a bit of an adventure on the crisp new snow before it gets messed up with tracks and footprints but have to restrain myself. There are just so many other people's cars around these days on the side of the road and, despite anti-lock brakes, traction control, tyres about three times the width of those on my old Ford Popular and a whole host of gadgetry in my current car, I am sure my £30 banger was more capable of getting from A to B in this weather.

So, apart from a trip to rescue my daughter from a party in Milton Keynes where I am sure they have made the roads out of a substance that gets especially slippery when covered with snow and stopping on even the most feint of inclines on one of the ubiquitous side roads results in being stuck for hours, I didn't do a great deal except take some pictures.

Merry Christmas :)

Bangers & Mash for Sarah B 50

Penny's place was packed a week or two ago. Wherever I stood, I was in the way as what seemed like most of the inhabitants of Astcote and Cold Higham had arrived to sample a whole load of variations on the theme of bangers and mash. Many had also arrived by invitation to wish Sarah B a slightly early happy 50th birthday. (The real occasion is tomorrow.)

Richard had the wood burner going in one room where the temperature was tropical and Penny's ovens were working at full steam so the kitchen was only marginally cooler. Wearing a shirt that I'd sprayed myself with blue and yellow stripes and some 1950s Polaroid sunglasses I felt appropriately dressed for the climate but, perhaps, not the occasion. The outfit had gone down well at Adrian's Half Century do just a week before so I thought an appearance, at least, was justified and a suitable nod in the direction of Sarah's penchant for the weird and wonderful providing it has something wackily artistic about it. The spray paint clogged up all the holes in the shirt fibre, though, so it was like wearing a cellulose mac and, especially in the vicinity of Richard's wood burner, the heat (and risk of explosion) necessitated a quick change to something more comfortable.

The food was, as always, brilliant and most of us had several helpings as well as indulging in the plentiful supply of alcoholic beverages available. For once, the Committee remained sober for long enough for me to read out one of my traditional birthday poems and that seemed to go down well. Here is is for anyone who missed it or fancies another chuckle.