Sunny skywatch

It's been a good week, dry weather and, at last, sunshine and the chance to do some jobs in the garden. I imagine that Valentine's Day for most women involves painting their nails and wearing an attractive dress, but I had a delivery of compost, a thousand litres of the stuff. The huge bag could not be moved across the gravel and was left outside the garage block so we had to barrow the contents away if we wanted to get a car out of the garage!  I'm as happy as a pig in muck! I've used some as a top dressing on parts of the flower borders and what lovely looking stuff it is, dark and friable.

We chose our Valentine meal from the M&S offers, so much food that we made two separate meals out of it. I was amused to unwrap the starter and see that the prawns were making a romantic statement!

It is so good to be outside, cold in the shadows but heartwarming to see the sun lighting up the bare branches.

The days are lengthening. Still light at half five.

And a clear sky means that it will be cold tonight.

My sunset to share with Friday Skywatch.

Sunday walk

We've had two days of sunshine and the snow is steadily disappearing, 

it's slipped from the branches

and kept the narrow pathways to and from the garage clear.

We hadn't been generating any electricity since the snowfall, but at noon today there was a dull thump as a load of snow slid from the roof panels and landed on the ground below. Hoorah, we are back feeding into the grid!

It looked so lovely out that we put on our boots and had a walk around the lake. 

No fishermen about, we had the place to ourselves.

The village looked very peaceful in the snow.

winter skywatch

At the start of the week we were waking to crisp, frosty mornings

and the promise of sun that never lasted for long.

A pheasant in the orchard looking for windfalls.

But this morning we woke to a different scene. I went round the garden with a soft sweeping brush banging the snow from bushes and branches so that they wouldn't be damaged by the weight of snow. 

We've had about ten inches or so and it embarrasses me that the country seems to fall apart every time we have a bit of weather like this. My father used to put chains on the wheels of his car in snowy conditions and always got to where he was going, slowly but safely.

It's a rather leaden sky for Friday Skywatch because the snow continued to fall for much of the day.