Ice and Frost

The past few days have been bitterly cold (at least by the standards of this country!)

Tuesday was horrible - lots of ice, and fog. However, Wednesday was very different -  I drove into work in sunshine, and as there was a very heavy hoar frost it was a drive through beautiful scenes.

I saw a group of roe deer in one of the fields - I haven't seen them much recently, so that cheered me up.

I had to drive across from one of our offices to another at lunch time, so I took a few minutes to stop and admire the scenery (particularly as the sun came out again) Despite it being mid day, very little of the frost had melted, and the trees looked as though it had snowed.

 It was almost lovely enough to make one forget just how brass-monkeys cold it was!

In Which It is a Bit Chilly

We haven't  had any more snow, which is a relief, but it has been very cold, so the hoar frost didn't melt, most days, so we ended up with frost  on frost. Chilly, but very pretty!

I have spent most of the week busy with work stuff, which is time consuming but doesn't make for terribly interesting bloggage.

I did, however, get to see my parents, who came to stay overnight on Wednesday, en route to a funeral. It was good to see them,  and gave me an excuse to make a nice hearty casserole (Beef in Guinness, if you're interested)

Although this week has been relatively uneventful, I do have lots of nice things to look forward to.

Tomorrow  evening  I shall be heading into Bath to the Theatre Royal to see The Merry Wives of Windsor - the production is the one which was on at the Globe Theatre, and is now touring. It should be fun.

And then, on Sunday evening, I am going back to Bath, back to the Theatre Royal, to see Handel's Messiah . Every year, around this time, there is a performance of The  Messiah by musicians using period instruments,  in period costume, by candlelight.  I've been wanting to go for several years, but as it is only on for one night, I've never managed to be organised enough to get a ticket, before.

Then, on Tuesday, I shall be going to see the historian, Bethany Hughes, talkng about her new book about Socrates.

Should be fun.

And of course, the week after that, I shall have lovely, fiendish guests :-)

In Which Winter Arrives

I can't deny that, on this occasion, the whether had impeccable timing, bringing the first hard frost of the winter this morning, 1st December. It is on mornings such as this that I regret the fact my house has central heating only downstairs!

There was a lovely sunrise (and one good thing about this time of the year is that the sunrise comes at a relatively civilized hour of the morning!)

Then there was the less lovely scraping of frost off the car windscreen. Inside and out, as it turned out. Perhaps I should avoid breathing inside the car for the next few months?

Then off out for my drive to work. It was a pleasant change to not be going through pouring rain, and to be seeing blue skies and sunshine sparkling off the silver-grey grass, it was clear that the frost and ice were not confined to the the fields. There was black ice on the road, too. Particularly treacherous as the road had been gritted so mainly felt (and looked) safe.

As I came (thankfully slowly and carefully) around a corner it was to the sight of a car which had been driving in the opposite direction to me, spinning backwards into the hedge - I watched as it tipped up but, fortunately came back down the right way up, and the driver was only shaken, not hurt.

As we waited for her to extract her car from the hedge, and feel ready to drive on, a motor bike came (again, travelling in the opposite direction to me) - as he came level with the car in the hedge he also hit a patch of black ice. His rear wheel skidded and he and the bike went down. Fortunately he had already slowed down a good deal, presumably having seen the accident, so although he was clearly shaken and (I suspect) bruised, he was not seriously hurt and his bike wasn't badly damaged.

The rest of the journey was taken very carefully - and I passed another road-closure (police and all) which I suspect was also related to the weather, and a little later, the sight of another car in the hedge....

I arrived at work feeling very grateful that things weren't worse.

In more cheerful news, my parents are home now after spending the last 6 weeks in New Zealand, and I shall be spending the weekend with them (hopefully they will be more or less over their jet-lag by then)

I have also taken to heart Royal Mail's claim that the last posting date for Christmas, for stuff going outside Europe is this Friday (although I don't really believe it, and strongly suspect that I could post stuff for weeks and it'd still arrive in time) and have been writing cards for various non-european friends.

The frost was pretty, but I shall be quite happy if tomorrow is a little less wintery.

Spring, and changing the clocks

The clocks went forward yesterday, and, while I am a little hazy on these things, this ought surely to mean we are moving towards Summer. I am slightly spooked by the fact that not only my video recorder, but also my microwave, is apparently clever enought to be able to change it's clock by itself. I can understand the video knowing - it spends it's life watching telepvision after all, and I am sure they mention the clocks changing on the News. But the microwave is not (as far as I am aware) in touch with any outside source... I am haunted by the fear that my microwave may in fact be brighter (or at least better organised) than me.

So, with all these harbingers of summer, I was a little disappointed when I woke, what felt like an hour early, looked out of the window and saw a thick frost. I has been a while since I've had to scrape the windscreen in the morning, and it did not feel in the least but spring-like.

On the other hand, the drive to work really was rather beautiful - the sun was shining, but there were also some very threatening looking clouds - deep grey and purple, like a bruise on the sky. The trees skeletal silhouettes against the sky made it look like a backdrop to Macbeth, or something equally sinisiter.

Closer to hand spring flowers (albeit covered in frost) were busting out all over - as well as daffodils and primroses, there is a lot of jasmine out, and this morning for the first time I could see pusy willow buds, and some bright green new leaves in the hedges, which is possibly blackthorn. Several magnolias have quite advanced buds - I hope the flowers aren't killed by the frost, and the ornamental cherries are pinkly ubiquitous.

I am not fond of pink, as a general rule, but am prepared to make an exception for cherry blossom.

There is no sign, in my garden, of the white violets which I transplanted from my parent's lawn (where they grew, wild and randomly) before they moved, so I am afraid that they did not survie the winter, which is very sad. On the other hand, the strawberry plant appears to have put out enthusiaastic runners and colonised the planter where the courgettes died last year, so perhaps one day there will be strawberries, and in the mean time I have an excellent excuse not to empty the planter and trying to grow courgettes in it again.

Instead, I shall try to grow courgettes in something else, although unless the slugs have changed their taste I shall probably fail. What I really need is a hedgehog, to eat the slugs and snails which infest my garden to a degree which seems excessive. I wonder whether anyone makes a mail order hedgehog.....