ICE PUDDLES

Most mornings over the last week, the puddles have been frozen. The patterns in the ice are stunning, if a little difficult to photograph. You have to get quite low down to get the light to catch them properly, otherwise the patterns become invisible. This first lot  are from a morning where the previous night had been extremely cold; it was minus seven at dawn. The temperature dropped very, very quickly, and it seems to have created totally different crystal formations from the night that followed where it was only minus one at dawn. Here are the first ones. I some cases the ice was pretty thick.

This next lot are from this morning and the ice was wafer thin and flimsy. By 9.00am it had virtually all melted. 

Yesterday evening I was on the book stall at the school Christmas fair. We sold lots but there were still boxes left. It was a great success all round and the money raised will go towards trips for the children next term. It has put me in a much more Christmasy mood and we're off to buy a tree tomorrow in Exeter. I've done most of my wrapping and sent off the parcels I need to so now it's just festive cooking and decorating.

 A few more pictures from our walks; just a few I promise!

Betty looking slimline in the sunshine. Still not sure if she's in foal yet

Frosty grass in the sunshine

Number ten dozing in the sun this morning

This crow is the first living thing I've seen other than ponies for days out on the moor. It's pretty bleak out there at the moment!

Tomorrow is set to be lovely, if cold, again. I really shouldn't listen to the forecast as it's often completely wrong for us. So, until next time, I'll leave you with Snippet's reflection in one of those icy puddles.

MISTS AND PUDDLES

If I manage to upload this post it will be a miracle. Our broadband is narrowing swiftly to a point where it's taken me half an hour just to log into Blogger. Anyway, with such an inspiring post title I don't suppose I'll have many takers! What a truly awful day. I've just got back from a squelch through what is essentially liquid peat mixed with slurry, being whipped around the knees by long, wet, droopy grass. Failing to don the waterproof trousers was an error. Living somewhere beautiful is all very well as long as you can see it which, for the last three days, I have not. There is an eerie stillness in the thick mist and, if I didn't know this part of the moor so well, I wouldn't dream of going out in it when visibility is so limited. Today, where rain has meant you can see about a hundred yards rather than yesterday's twenty, I saw a man with a dog in a place I wouldn't expect to see anyone other than me. He kept looking at his map which was a bit of a worry but, as I started to walk towards him, he veered off down the hill and out of sight. Map reading where he was is not easy so I hope he's okay. Here are some dull, if Hound-of-the Baskervilles-ish pictures from the last few days.....

the hound

Dew on the dying grass this morning

Close up of that lonesome hawthorn. I can't resist another one of it....

Misty Snippet

A short respite from the mist on Monday, allowing clearer views of the puddles

Huge puddle in one of the many hut circles around here. I must do a separate post about them 

soon....

I think this might be a Mauve Pink Toadstall. I found it in a crack in a wall. A really good shade of mauve.

Poor Number 2 drenched this afternoon. My first sighting of any ponies since last Friday

Sorry to grizzle about the weather....on a more positive note, the wedding went very well in that I managed not to fall over in my 1 inch heals, which was a distinct possibility. I hate being photographed but by the end of it was managing not to get too stressed about it. What a stunning day it was. The sun was positively hot outside the church and bride and groom had a lovely day. They liked the drawings I did of their dogs as a wedding present too thank goodness. It's all very well drawing ponies and sheep that nobody will ever recognise, but doing people's pets is a very different matter! It's given me the confidence to do it again so I may have to draft some kind of advert....

Sorry, also, that I haven't been commenting on your blogs by the way....I get one done and then the next freezes for ages and I have to abandon it. Phone calls will be made to broadband provider tonight!Thanks for all your lovely comments; It's such a pleasure to read them. Until next time....