An odd pair

Robin au naturel, from Birr last week:

And from the sublime to the ...The photo challenge on SCS this last week was snow white. Hmm - all our snow has melted. There are some dirty muddy piles still in work where it was cleared from the yard, but that's not white by any stretch of the imagination. And the light dusting we had on Friday night was pretty, but not really enough to turn anything white, and luckily not enough to cause any traffic problems. We are still having our water cut at night in rotation through several areas. It was meant to be back on at 7 this morning. At 9.30 I rang the out-of-hours number and got a recorded message saying it would be back at 11. I was annoyed with myself because all week I'd meant to check if we had another scheduled outage and when it would be, and I kept forgetting.
Anyway, back to my photo - the challenges are meant to be current photos taken after the challenge is posted, so I used some lateral thinking and pulled out this old Pepys card game which belonged to my mother when she was young. It was issued in 1938, so just the year after the film came out.  They even say By Permission Walt Disney - Mickey Mouse Ltd, so he wasn't just Walt Disney plain and simple back then.  I think I remember my mother saying it was the first film she saw, and she was really frightened by the Wicked Queen. I don't think I can remember the first film I ever saw. I know that for my half-brother it was Oliver, because my mother said he spent most of the time looking backwards watching the light coming from the projector.

Bare Beauty 2

Birr, again...

I heard someone on a gardening program last week saying that she would always have mahonia for the scent. Well, the one in our neighbours garden that I hang all my feeders from definitely is not scented, and neither was this one - just beautiful.

 I am not overfond of hydrangeas and only spent some time trying to get a good picture of one in the summer because I wanted a photo to make a card for a friend. This time of year, though, I think thre are really beautiful - I'd have them happily if they looked like this all year round.

Bear in a Bag

When I was ordering the wool for the last jumper I knit C, they had some Bear in a Bag kits on clearance. I only got one as another would have put me into the next rate for postage, but I had fun making him over the last week, and will look out for some more wool suitable to knit another. That is even though it is so hard to keep track of the stitches in amongst all that fur; when I accidentally dropped a stitch while decreasing, it took something like 8 rows of ripping back carefully one row at a time before I ended up with the right number of stitches on the needle. He was also meant to have embroidered eyes, and there was some shaping over his nose that you were meant to embroider them on - but I took the easy option of using buttons like the little old boot buttons. He's going to an adult, so I wasn't worried about the child-safety aspect.

 He was going to a new home today, so I made him a new bag from a large envelope.

Bare Beauty

More photos from Birr. It was lovely to see the structures of the trees so clearly, and to have views that are normally obcscured by all the growth.

Swan Lake

 I was lucky enough to have another trip to Birr today. In a way it's a pity C's meeting last week was cancelled, because it would have been beautiful in the snow, but a nightmare to get there. This morning was a cold frosty morning and a beautiful drive down, although almost as soon as we crossed into Offaly it seemed to get milder and less frosty. More will follow, but as we were up in Lisburn for the weekend an early bed is called for tonight.
I spent too long sitting on a bench near the lake watching the swans and ducks, and got too cold - but I still think it was worth it. Shame I can't add a sound track  - as well as the honking of the ducks there was a little warbling whistle, for all the world just like a referee's whistle blown softly. I only heard it when I saw the moorhens around, but since I've often seen them and never heard that sound before that could have been pure coincidence. I also had fun watching all the goldfinches and chaffinches, along with coal, blue and great tits. But alas, as I only made a definite decision to go just ten minutes before C wanted to leave, I forgot to pack his spotting scope in my bag.

Tunnel Vision

It was a like a skating rink on most of the footpaths in town yesterday morning; they were at their most lethal yet. A day to be grateful for the tunnel ...At least by Monday everything should have finally melted and it will be safe to walk again.

Pigeon Holes

I know I posted a similar photo of a pigeon in one of the drainage holes along the quays before. But this one is puffed up so much in an effort to stay warm that it's almost comical. He looks like a clown wearing a ruff.

Time to introduce our current robin to mealworms - he seemed to like them.

Thank goodness a thaw seems to be on the way. I just hope it lasts longer than some forecasts are suggesting.

Surprised to See...

I need to catch up with my photos. We had someone for dinner yesterday, and today I went into town after work to try to get all my book presents. Chapters were giving a €5 in-store book token for purchases over €50, which was a nice surprise. At last I think the snow is one the way out - one more cold night forecast. There was a surprise snowfall last night - it took C about twenty minutes to get the car clear to take Hana back home, as there was ice on the insides of the windows as well as outside.
Anyway, none of that was surprising. What was was this seal that I saw on Monday morning. It was so cold (-5 or 6 C, about 23F) that my glasses were all steamed up as I walked along the Liffey, but I could see a shape bobbing up and down that looked too big to be the cormorant, and also wasn't staying down long enough. When I got closer and got my glasses un-steamed, it was a seal. I was disappointed that I only had a wide-angle lens on the camera, so I couldn't get very good pictures, but it was lovely to see. Back in the summer when I saw all the shoals of mullet, one of the guys in work said he thought he'd just caught a glimpse of a seal out of the corner of his eye, but they certainly don't often come this far up the river. That's quite some sizeable looking fish he has, too!

This last picture is actually one I took quickly just before I left the house on Monday. It's amazed me, at night it's so light with all the snow on the ground and the snow clouds, but in the mornings before the sun is up it's so gloomy and dull and overcast. If my leg muscle that I damaged last summer hadn't just recovered from the walk last week, I'd have got off the bus and walked through Phoenix Park yesterday, it looked just beautiful. Sometimes discretion is the better part of valour, though, and at least I was rewarded with seeing the seal.

Mixed bag...

Well, I am glad that week is over. Between C getting up earlier every morning and the long walk on Wednesday I am ready for a quite relaxing weekend.
I spotted this lovely snowman on the way to the bus stop this morning.

I've been amazed to see all the leaf-fall on the snow. I suppose that normally by the time we get any snow there are no leaves left to fall. I missed the chance to take a photo earlier in the week, but saw these on the way home today.

Not forgetting the birds - these were taken through the back porch door, so slightly dulled by the glass. Once it got so cold I hung out the suet treat holder for high-energy feed - the bluetit obviously likes it.

December - still no change.

I've always wanted to try walking home from work through the park - but I was always thinking in terms of a pleasant summer day or a crisp autumn one, not a snowy December when I wasn't expecting it and didn't have a stick. After waiting half an hour for C I gave up and started walking - 1 3/4 of an hour. After 3 hours in the car he still hadn't even reached O'Connell Bridge, and he parked the car and also walked home. Now he's planning an early start in the morning to retrieve the car so it doesn't get clamped. I hate to say I told him so, but when it started snowing heavily at lunch time I suggested it would be better to leave the car in work than have to abandon it on the way home.
At least I got a few OK photos  - OK given the low light levels. And I saw a huge herd of deer, making the most odd noise - a mixture between the sound of a flock of gulls and dogs gently barking - it was a real plus on the walk.

Waiting on the quays

Papal Cross in the park

Traffic in the park!!!

Traffic on the motorway

(I wanted to take a shot like this when the SCS photo challenge was Night Life, but it was rainy all that week and I was just starting my cough. I didn't have a tripod tonight, obviously, but I just balanced it on the bridge. Hope I haven't set my cough back after that trek!)

There may be a couple more photos tomorrow - I took some in work, but for now I am for bed.