Joys of Winter

Lovely thread. Beautiful descriptions bagitha you must live somewhere magical. We had the first frost of the winter last night (West Cheshire) Had a lovely crisp walk with the dog this morning before checking if there was any damage to patio plants. Everything appears okay and because no more frost is forcast this week will leave them in situ and continue to enjoy the colour.

Sea mist again today
And the loch would be a mirror
But for the navy tugs doing exercises.
Meanwhile the rafts of eider ducks gossip
And a little grebe bobs up from the water
Like an unsinkable rubber toy.

What a beautiful word painting.

From where I'm sitting I can see a winterscape.
The mist has almost burned off
But some of it is hugging the hilltops like snow
And some of it is sitting above the loch
Hazing out the view in a soft, light way.
The sky is the palest baby blue.
The bare trees are dark but not black.
The ivy covering the trunks of some of them is deep green.
The hills below the cloud snow are pale orange,
And a few sparrows are chirping from the yellow-green leaves
Of the box-leaved cotoneaster north of my chair.

What a treat, grannyactivist .

Great photo, bagitha. Thanks for posting . Isn't it surprising what colours nature uses....

Lovely photo's Baggy and Ariadne.
The lane opposite my house leads to a beautiful river meadow, which in turn leads to the sea. It takes me one minute to walk to the river and twenty minutes to walk to the beach. I am so, so fortunate - especially at this time of the year when the hills outside my window and the sea and the cliffs look different every day.

A "joy of winter" - being able to cover up and huddle under giant cardi-coats, opaque tights and BOOTS!

Thanks, butternut. Check out this lovely autumnal pic from NY. Love the colour contrast:
epod.usra.edu/blog/2011/11/fall-comes-to-the-devonian.html

bagitha - your "copper-coloured hills......" could have been a line straight out of a Walt Whitman poem.

Oh! And a treecreeper on the trunk of the bare silver birch. They're much harder to see when it's in full leaf.

Copper-coloured hills across the loch as the late afternoon light falls slantwise on the dead bracken.

ariadne, I hope your friends are seeing a bit more autumn now. My nephew in upstate NY says the snow melted very quickly and that it has been "quite warm" for the last few days .

I think they are a bit fed up - feel they've missed Autumn too. And it is deep countryside too. They have the best stocked cellar I have ever seen, ready for being snowed in, and the logs are piled up by the door. It's an 18th century farmhouse, and has a "gathering room" and a "borning room", as well as the huge cellar. Can imagine in early times they had to be even more prepared!

Looks lovely,but they must be depressed that winter has come so early. I lived in Connecticut for a few years and we ahad one of those New England winters, beautiful, but you got tired of it after a while.

...and I'll say it again...love this thread.

Yellow holly leaves decorating part of the lawn .

Looks beautiful when it is all clean and crisp. Lovely photos, had to laugh, look as if you are standing in front of my son's kitchen window.

Very pretty - very cold!

Done it! Do look at the snowy scenes in my friend's garden.

I am going to try to put a picture on my profile of my Friend's garden (3 1/2 acres!!!) in New Hampshire, where they've had heavy snow. It will probably take me a while, but do look - it's stunning. But they do have the generator on, and the wood stove...

Oh dear! The maples seem to be fading, and the last of the rowans is fast losing its leaves. My car, parked under it is covered with little leaves every morning. The yellow berries are still there because the blackbirds have binges every so often and then leave them alone for days at a time. Funny, that!

You are so lucky Butternut. That must have been a fabulous sight to see.

I saw a beautiful skein of storks on my walk this morning. I heard them before I saw them. I'm trying to find a word to describe their call ....... but can't come up with just the right one yet.

It was one of those walks when nature never disappoints.

Went out earlier in my car in the dark and noticed how many cyclist don't have lights!!!! Also there were a number of cars with only one headlight!

Oh dear I am a grumpy old witch tonight.