Snow Business

A little over a week ago London was under a foot of snow with a promise of more to come, and everyone and his/her dog cheerfully bunked off to go out and enjoy it. The extra snow failed to materialise here (though it did in other parts of the country) and what snow we had was gone all too soon,  but the carnival atmosphere on that snowy hill won’t be forgotten by me in a hurry.

R and I walked to Parliament Hill on Hampstead Heath in a thick flurry of snow, visibility was poor and we didn’t get the hoped for view from there of the whole of London in its snowy blanket. Still, we did have the fun of playing together with strangers in the snow - snowball fights, screaming chaos on improvised sledges made from tea trays, dustbin lids, estate agents sighnboards and more than one bathtub sent hurtling down the slopes to rowdy shrieks and cheers.  Anyway enough words, check out the film and pictures… there’s more to come.

Those of us on the chillier side of the world might find it hard to imagine the terrible events taking place in Australia. We are lucky that the worst so many of us are having to deal with right now is a little snow. Please, if you can, donate to the Red Cross Australian Bushfires Appeal.

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Winter Sunset

Yesterday I wrote of walking in a once-in-a-generation icy landscape, and mentioned that I had been transfixed by the sunset at the end of the walk. I’m going to save my words today and just show you the sunset that kept me outside that little bit longer.

Want to see more of my cold weather pictures? Here’s a link to my account of  the rest of this Icy Hampshire Winter Walk, and another to Frosty Winter Fields.

For more beautiful and fascinating images of the sky around the world, visit Skywatch Friday!

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Deep Freeze

At the start of the year, a week’s worth of sub zero temperatures accompanied by thick freezing fog transformed the Hampshire countryside around R’s parents. One short stroll in this uncanny landscape has to count as one of the most extraordinary walks I have ever taken anywhere.

The rolling contours of Hampshire’s giant industrially farmed fields still stubbled with the remains of last years crops had become a brittle confection, sugar dusted. Hedgerow branches hung furred with ice, which crackled and popped delicately if you touched it with your tongue.  As we set off a flock of fieldfares whirled like bonfire ash, gleaning the frozen ground.

Visibility shifted – from ten yards to fifty then back to ten. At times the silent world rolled under my feet as would a treadmill, the landscape ahead not just invisible but wholly absent.

The bold silhouettes of my companions, sharp as cardboard cut-outs, faded to grainy photocopies then neatly dissolved into the white.  All landmarks obliterated, the hard crackling ground under my feet became the only certain thing.

An occasional game crop – sunflowers or corn (left standing as fodder for Hampshire’s vast population of doomed pheasants) lent the landscape an almost apocalyptic air, frozen flower heads bent under rimes of frost an inch or more thick.  For a moment I could picture refugees pouring through devastated frozen fields should a failing Gulf Stream plunge Britain into another ice age.

Crossing the empty fields felt like crossing a fog bound ocean, landmarks islanded in whiteness and fading in and out like ghosts. A spinney loomed out of the ground like a surfacing leviathan.

At our approach individual trees picked themselves out delicately in a lacy monochrome, sugared and perfect. Passing its edge the spinney now took on the aspect of a snow globe, and we the tiny people in it. A short detour among the trees revealed a world in negative – silver branches against a darker sky. White, silver, platinum, all in finer calibrations than you would ever suspect a human eye could see and way beyond the capabilities of my camera or my prose. Apart from the fieldfares at the beginning of our walk we didn’t see another moving thing, and the hedgerows were uncannily silent.

The fog began to clear, revealing a cheerless wintry sun hung in an opalescent sky. Colour seeped gently back into the landscape. At the end of our walk I paused to admire the sky while my small companion excitedly explained the complex world of Harry Potter. Everyone else seemed in a rush to get into the car, and I can’t blame them, but the sunset had me rooted to the spot.

To see the first set of my cold weather pictures, take a look at the previous blog post Through The Wardrobe. There will be more cold weather pictures soon!

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Through The Wardrobe

Last week saw the temperatures in the south of England plummet, nights of -15 and days when the mercury didn’t ever get above freezing. I’m from up north where the winters are generally more savage, but even I was surprised by the intense cold – and the beauty it created.

Freezing fog decked the trees and hedgerows with glittering garlands of frost, and in the usually mild and kindly Hampshire landscape that I escaped to this weekend, I felt as if I had stumbled through the wardrobe and into Narnia.

The fields near R’s family home, pocketed in the land’s gentle swell were silent monochrome, their familiar far ridge obliterated by icy fog.

I had found nests of peacock caterpillars and watched drowsy flies dance on the Hogweed flowers in this lane last summer. Now the undergrowth had been frost bitten back to nothing. All except for the umbels of dead Hogweed which had been candied with a thick rime of frost.

It was so cold that I had to keep my camera in my jeans pocket, only removing it quickly to snatch a hasty photo. This picture of ice crystals on a bramble is the most in-focus closeup image I managed in two days.

The hedgerow trees stood ghostly in a sugared landscape, petrified and birdless.

In this gentle southern county of England conditions of such magnificent hostility may only come once in a lifetime, and despite a heavy cold I spent as much time out in it as was polite to my hosts. Walking at night was magical – the flanks of the hills glittering under a full moon when the fog shifted enough to reveal them. I have a single night walk photo that worked and a whole other set from a day walk to share over the next couple of days, these are just a taster. Come visit again!

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Belated Happy New Year…

…I know it’s late but I’ve barely sat still for the last six weeks or so, so I hope you’ll forgive me. Coming soon I have some pictures of the incredible freak weather southern England has been experiencing. But for now, just to remind us that spring really will be on it’s way sooner than you think, I’d like to introduce you to Ms Fox. She’s making the most impressive racket in our back gardens right now as she calls to Mr Fox all night and all day, sometimes a hushed  “yip yip yip”, but more and more often a window rattling scream that would test the strongest nerves. I caught her going about her morning routine, patrolling the neighbourhood fences and walls in search of breakfast.

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