Flat calm

It has been preying on my mind for a while that this blog needs a new “front cover” article. I had hoped to get out and about at the weekend and maybe document the island under it’s light coat of snow. That was not to be.

What’s a girl to do? It is all very well, this striving for an entertaining and illuminating blog, but when one’s life is temporarily rather more than a little flat and boring – what’s to do? Write about cleaning cat trays and editing text for publishing? I think not!

So, we are having a cold snap. Very cold, in Orcadian terms – we hit -6.5°C last night – almost three whole degrees lower than our previously recorded record low. We even have snow worth the name, and a white landscape for a while to punctuate the eternal green/blue. More remarkably, we have sun and snow at the same time as an absence of wind! The sea is flat calm and glassy. The island really does look very different indeed.

Oddly, it feels quite warm – the lack of windchill more than makes up for the sub-freezing temperatures. It is fun outsides, in the sun, making crunchy footprints in sparkling snow. The dogs love it, of course. Nell in particular, as she has not seen this much snow before. She loves to tuck her hind legs up underneath her and just hare around the garden – throwing up clouds of snow and ice behind her. She has poor skid control, it must be said.

Last night, my world looked wonderful in the light of a full moon. This morning it looked even prettier in a pearly sunrise.

After losing my camera over the weekend, I woke with a slight “aha!” feeling and, sure enough, found the little blighter. I knew I should be doing other things, so I snuck out very quickly at coffee time – attaching the polariser as I went, but failing to check my memory against the facts of usage…

…ah well, publish and be damned!

As always, click for bigness.

There have been swans on the bay this morning – not, of course when I had a camera to hand. There have also been seals bobbing about, their wet skins glinting in the bright sunshine. They too were absent when the camera was out. They simply taunted me while I tended our lunch.

Work of several forms is keeping me busy. Knitting has been focused on winter-wear. Two hats have popped off the needles over the last few days. I tried to make some mittens in bed last night, with leftover yarn from one of the hats. I shall need to be frogging those – they have appalling “ladders” at the needle joins. I need a circular needle for them, but do not have one in the right size, 4mm, with a suitable cord for magic loop.

This wasn’t much of a feature article, I know, but I was so tired of seeing the Hogmanay issue…