Days of ice

The skies have cleared, the sun has come out, and the temperature has plummeted. I wasn't able to make the most of it over the weekend, as I wasn't feeling too good - slept badly on Friday night, felt drowsy and slightly queasy for no apparent reason all day Saturday, slept late on Sunday and felt better but still a bit fragile, slept even later on Monday and felt even better... durham_rambler decided that if no better entertainment was on offer, he would defrost the freezer, which was encased in a thick shell of ice. He is a hero, and I am plotting to refill it at the Farmers' Market on Thursday, and wondering how long it will take me to get used to not having to wrest it open against the seal of ice - at present it feels slightly wrong.

By yesterday morning, I was going stir crazy, and we went to the Botanic Gardens for a short walk and to take photos: this is not necessarily my favourite of the batch, but it is the first - first photograph of the year, and about time too! The sculpted heron looks as unconcerned by the shards of ice around his feet as the real heron does by the cold dark waters of the river - it must be a heron thing. There were snowdrops in the woods, the flowers not yet open, and daffodil spikes emerging from the ground (that can't be right, surely?) There was much frost, outlining leaves, dripping from trees, probably doing no good whatsoever to some early flowers. And when we'd had enough of the cold, there were the greenhouses, and then home and hot soup for lunch.

More frost today, so we deferred our swim until this afternoon. It disrupts the the day, but it avoids the agony of scraping the ice of the car before you can go anywhere (and then having to stop after a hundred yards to clear the windscreen again). Will we do it again? Probably, unless the thaw comes...