Saturday, January 10, 2009

Walkin' in a winter wonderland

It's cold. I mean, really cold right now. I woke up this morning to a completely white world -- sky, ground, trees, the air, everything. And it's not snow, but a very heavy and very beautiful frost. The water in the water butt is frozen solid and even the gnome looks chilly. The BBC Weather Centre has claimed for several days now that it was going to be warm this weekend, but they're clearly still hungover from Christmas.



Wrapping up very warmly, I ventured down to the local garage to buy The Guardian and treated myself to lunch at The Old Forge as a reward for finally doing some exercise. Feeling revived, I tramped back across the fields and up through the woods, with stunning views. The only thing that would have improved the afternoon would have been PJ at my side -- or a dog. Something with a wet nose, either way.



It's now time to build a fire and burn through the scanty remainder of our log pile, while polishing off the last of my best find of 2009 so far -- a hitherto-unread Christopher Fowler novel, Rune. (I love his work; if you like murder mysteries and arcane pieces of London history, check him out -- particularly the Bryant & May novels.) The cats have already positioned themselves on top of the hot water pipes running along the landing and seem reluctant to shift. Good thinking. I'm also contemplating making a plum crumble to have with custard after the remains of last night's veg curry. Sounds good, no?

2 comments:

Simon said...

Madrid is suffering its first decent snowfall in many years. It's nothing compared to Winchester - a slight layer of white on some surfaces is enough to provoke school closures, cancelled meetings and national panic in general.

If they only knew. Still I suppose the Icelanders would say the same about us.

Simon

Lifes a Beach said...

A friend with a `wet nose` is a friend indeed.
A dog does most definitely improve a walk in the ravishing but freezing weather..any weather really ,so go get!
A warm-nosed friend of mine also prefers her `wet-nosed` friends to hot water bottles and in recent weeks has slumbered in her boudoir with a whippet curled up each side of her!

www.lifesabeachnorfolk.com