Happy New Year

Hoping your path in 2011 takes you to good places...

and thank you for sharing my (largely pictorial) take on the world around me.

Christmas Day

Christmas Eve night was COLD! We got to Delgany and back safely, although some of the motorway coming home was a bit hairy, and the windscreen washer was frozen up the whole way in spite of the fact that there was quite a high concentration of screenwash in it. Not high enough, obviously. With that cold, dry night Christmas Day was beautiful and frosty and sunny. C was battling with a cold, and we didn't feel like taking the car out, but at some stage he decided he was up for a short walk across the green just to enjoy the scenery. Once we were out, we walked down to the Twelfth Lock and then back along the canal. Boxing Day was warmer, no frost and grey, so we were really glad we'd got out on Christmas Day.

Morning, end of our road

Out walking

Footprints on the canal.

We presumed these were also some type of print, which snow or loose crystals had then drifted around. Except that even most birds don't seem to put one foot right in front of the other, and there were places where we saw a similar formation but just one or two, not a trail.

In the evening the sun tinted all those white trees at the end of the road a lovely pinky/orange.

A few from Christmas Eve...

...which was when I went to the park, not having checked that their were memory cards in my cameras. I have to admit I almost found the snow there too much, and was disappointed with the photos I came home with, but such as they were, here are  a few of the best.

This was just inside Castleknock Gate: normally it would be bumper to bumper traffic.

Over by one of the ponds - the one where I've often taken photos of the heron. The poor ducks didn't have much water left! And the next photo is the trees that grow around that pond.

Between the Ordnance Survey and Farmleigh - behind the lantern you can just see one of the cones they had laid out to mark the road.

And back near the gate again, a lime tree: I loved the swirl in the leaf.

Happy Christmas

Yesterday in the park.
I rushed to get the bus in case I could get the same bus as C, who had given up on the train because the points were frozen. I forgot crumbs for the birds and forgot to check there was a memory card in the camera. Yikes - thank goodness that just this week I put an xD card into the second slot, so even though it's small capacity and slow to write to, there was something in the camera. I keep a spare Compact Flash card in my handbag, but I didn't have that with me yesterday.
But I did remember a foil blanket to kneel on which was put to good use taking close-ups of frosty grasses :D.

Wishing you all a happy and peaceful Christmas season.

Another mixed bag...

A few more from yesterday, a couple from today. On holidays now till the 3rd, and looking forward to a quiet Christmas. Weather permitting we are meant to be going to my aunt's tomorrow - the one whose house and dogs we looked after in May/June - and meeting my sister there. Here's hoping the snow stops overnight!!

From yesterday; a bird who didn't really belong in the cold bird miscellany, although he was pretty puffed up, what little I could see of him. I'd stopped on a corner to take a photo of snow on the berries, and as I rounded the bend I saw this little beady eye peeping out - he was snacking away on some berries growing in a little hollow in the hedge. This photo is un-cropped - blackbird and I were up close and personal.

The marina down at the Twelfth Lock, and the railway line.

Snow-ward bound, I'm snow-ward bound...

And from today - waiting 20 minutes for a bus in the morning, which then took over an hour and a quarter to get in to the city.

 

Pre-chilled beer, no cold room required!!

And when I got home again: you can see in the robin photo it was snowing yet again! It's not just that I need to clean the back door, although that also is true.

A cold bird miscellany

Before going shopping today I walked on down to the Twelfth Lock. I was sorry I didn't have anything to feed the birds, but at least someone arrived with crumbs.

What ya got there - gonna share?

And still it snows...

We have a CD by The 2nd Chapter of Acts called The Roar of Love, based on The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. It has some lovely songs in it, but the one that comes to mind at the moment is the track Christmas, where are you:
Oh Christmas, where are you,
The snow keeps hangin'
On and on and on and on.
You never come and it always snows,
We can't take much more white snow...

We're lucky in that we are staying here for Christmas and don't need to travel, but my sister has the turkey for her in-laws and is now starting to think that they may not make it up to Dublin, and a lot of people are going to wish it wasn't a white pre-Christmas week! England is suffering a lot more than we are, but there were no flights out of Dublin for several hours today.

On our road - a neighbour shovelling, but at the rate the snow fell he should have saved his efforts for tomorrow!  I think they bought two snow shovels  - we may be going down to borrow one tomorrow.

This is what the end of the road looked like just a couple of hours later

This was earlier in the morning - the sky was still dark from the eclipse, I think, although I didn't venture out to a point where I could see the moon. I settled for enjoying the look of the light snowfall on a roof.

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.