And it's still only November

C has been busy checking the bus times for tomorrow morning, as yesterday's snow is an icy crust underneath today's fall. Like me he hates the early morning trains where you're crammed in like sardines, but our bus route has recently been extended so it has its terminus on the same road as his office. It was so beautiful this morning - we both went out to the green at the end of the road before breakfast, and met another neighbour out with his camera. He's off to Frankfurt next week  - at least he's getting acclimatised already. C went to a trade fair there one year and said he had never in his life been so cold.

Our dinner guests didn't come because of the snow, and not much chance of us going up to Dromore in the evening either, so I spent my morning discovering that it's quite possible to colour fabric with watercolour pencils. At one stage I had bought some fabric paints, but when my sister expressed an interest I gave them to her thinking I would replace them, which I never did. After stamping I stretched my fabric on an embroidery hoop to keep it taut, and used Caran D'Ache Neocolour crayons to colour the images in. Keeping the brush quite dry there was very little bleeding, and I'll definitely be trying this again.

Good Grief, it's only November still

...and when I looked out the front curtains this morning the garden and road were covered with snow. C looked out the bedroom window and wasn't impressed, but he changed his mind when he looked out the front and walked down to the shops with me. Just as we left there were strong gusts of wind, and all the leaves blowing across the still fairly pristine road were really beautiful. My hat took off too, I had to run after it. Thankfully that wind died down for the rest of the walk, but I wish I'd been able to capture more than just the memory of the dead green leaves swirling across. Lots of food out for the birds today.

Sunday in the Park

When I measured the snow in the back garden this morning, it was six inches deep. Yesterday I'd bought a new feeder, to try to stop big birds eating all the fat balls up too quickly, so this morning it was lovely to see two coal tits pecking away at it.
After breakfast we went to the park for a walk...Next time I re-read the Laura Ingalls Wilder books I will have a much better understanding of how hard work it must have been breaking trails in the snow - it wasn't long before my calves were aching when we walked cross country. We saw lots of birds, including a tiny little wren foraging away on a tree. We also saw some dedicated bikers, a couple of whom were having trouble getting enough traction in the snow going uphill, and one guy who had one of those surfing kites, and presumably was aiming to snowboard along. It was snowing heavily just then - too cold for us to stand and wait to see did he achieve lift-off. We saw the kite up once, but he didn't have whatever he was going to use - skis or snowboard or whatever it was, so he just let it fall again.

Her owner said that they had always thought Dotty was whiter, till they saw her in the snow!

Ducks on one of the lakes

The other lake, a lot more frozen than it was on Christmas Day. All we saw on it today was one hooded crow.

Although we were in an area where the deer normally congregate, this pair racing through the snow were the only two we saw all morning. A photo can't capture the magic of seeing them springing along.

Walking on Water

Not us - too risky.
This morning we decided that by the time we had de-iced the car (by the time C had de-iced the car) we could be almost at the library if we walked. So we walked...it took about half an hour with photo stops, plus waiting for a train to go through the level crossing. Not bad, given that C walks more slowly  than I do.
To my astonishment and amazement, he was still up for another walk along the canal in the afternoon, having seen in the morning how lovely it looked all frozen.
These pictures are all from the afternoon walk: we saw an awful lot of bird and animal tracks on the ice. My guess, from the size, is that this was a moorhen. What the little mammal tracks we saw are I am not sure - some could have been rabbits, fox, maybe even an otter: some of them were quite large.

The angles of some of the photos are a bit off. Well, I certainly didn't want to risk falling 6 or 7 feet down into that icy water by getting any closer to the bank!

View from the bridge - therefore with proper perspective, as the only hazard was cars passing by. More tracks, as you can see in the bottom left corner.

Can you believe these next two are the same spot! One was taken in the sunshine about ten to four, and the second was taken about half an hour later, when it was already starting to turn dark, and was snowing again.
I wouldn't even have spotted that they were the same, except that in rotating the sunshine one, I had to crop it a bit, and cropped out the funny object lying on the ice.

And one last one...

 I haven't done a big supermarket shop since before Christmas, so we've been having store-cupboard meals supplemented by the local butcher and green-grocer. C is not at all a fan of pasta, but on my account he will put up with it from time to time. This macaroni cheese is one that he actually likes.

Macaroni Cheese - to serve 4
1/2 lb suitable pasta - penne, quills, elbows
1 sliced onion
at least a dozen cherry tomatoes - more for us!
4 hard-boiled eggs, cut in quarters
3 tblsp breadcrumbs
2 tblsp finely grated Red Leicester or similar sharp red cheese
Sauce:
1 1/2 oz butter (3 tblsp)
1 1/2 oz flour  (3 tblsp)
1 pint(   2 1/2 US cups) milk
5 oz grated Red Leicester
pinch of cayenne and salt for seasoning.
Cook the macaroni and onion in a large pan of boiling, lightly salted water. Cook as long as your pasta requires. Drain well and put in a heatproof dish.
While cooking the pasta, make the cheese sauce by melting butter, adding flour, then milk and simmering for a couple of minutes when it comes to the boil. Add the grated cheese and season to taste. Pour the sauce over the pasta, gently sir in the hard-boiled eggs. Arrange the tomatoes, cut in half, over the top. Sprinkle with the breadcrumbs and cheese and grill for about 5 minutes under a pre-heated grill till the top is golden brown.

Iced Berries for Dessert

Had to work this afternoon, met C afterwards for a meal. We eat downmarket when we eat out; it's hard to pay €70 or €80 for a nice meal with wine when I know that most of the time I could cook a better meal at home for half the price, with even better wine. So we had kebabs, and then came home.
Took quite a lot of photos in the morning around here, and in the afternoon in town, but for now I'm just going to share this thrush that I spotted this morning. There was a pair of them trying to eat (I guess) the frozen berries - they were certainly tugging and pecking at them. Makes me think the bird on the patio that C identified as a dark thrush is a hen blackbird, which was my suggestion in the first place...

It's Still Cold Here

I had a little photo shoot with the robin this morning. I was glad to see him, after not having seen him at all yesterday. It must be tough on the birds in this weather; we are getting a lot of pigeons and some magpies scavenging for what they can find.

















Then I stamped the snow off my boots when I went in to get a bowl of water to put out for the birds (not that it stayed as water for too long), and was amused by the pattern the snow made. It reminded me of a jumper I once knit my half-brother, which had a border of mice and fish skeletons - the snow made me think fish.

And in the afternoon I had to go out to get milk, and put some letters in the post in case there would be a collection. We have a sort of freezing fog today, so instead of the crystal clear visibility of yesterday, today was quite a different atmosphere. I loved the splash of blue from this mother and child skipping down the path.

This time, frost on the bus shelter instead of snow on my skylight.

I was certainly glad that I'd gone back into the house to get my camera. Not that climbing the ladder to the attic in wellingtons is something I would like to do every day! And - I managed to find my missing memory card. I wasn't worried about losing photos, because I knew they were all uploaded. But I like having two in my camera - then if I've taken one out to put in the card reader, there's still another one there.

 I have to work tomorrow afternoon, to make up for today being cancelled. So  C & I might meet up in town and go out for a meal - now there's a rare treat!

Snowy, Snowy Day...

Paint your palette white and grey,
Look out on a winter's day
With eyes that see the coldness in the air...
I got to work with no problems, as did C who was lamenting not having taken the motorbike today.
But by the time I was in town for work, there was light snow.
And by the time I went  in to the city centre after work to get some wool, there was heavy snow...it took me a lot longer than usual to get home. All the roads that had been pretty much clear in the morning were now blanketed with white.
This was taken through a very dirty bus window, at one of the entrances to Phoenix Park, as we crawled by in slow, heavy traffic.

This was when I got off the bus stop -

And this is an edited abstract of the snow on my skylight :D

And I have to face getting in to work tomorrow in whatever has happened overnight. I was meant to be off, but someone else is stuck in Berlin, and Dublin Airport is closed till at least eight this evening - so his chances of making it back to Dublin, let alone work, are slim.