Told you so

Yes, my next walk was somewhat miserable. Tranent to Pathhead on slippy wet snow under a grey sky. The low point came when we felt we ought to have some sort of lunch stop, and stood among dripping branches in a wood for ten minutes. The day did improve after this, and the hill up from GlenKinchie distillery brought some crisper snow. More incident too: we helped somebody get their car out of the snow, and a few fields later saw a barn owl hunting along the hedges.

Mair snow

First thing this morning, I had one of those half-awake thoughts. "Wouldn't it be funny if there had been a huge snowfall overnight, and the world is turned white?" Then I looked out and it had.

There had been remnants of snow the night before, but there was now a perfect, even covering. There was snow banked up at the base of my windows, and skeins of spindrift reached out between the rooftops.

As you can perhaps guess, I retain enough of a kid inside me to still enjoy some extreme weather, especially when I have nothing in particular to do at work. I'm certainly not alone in this. As I made my bus journey, the shared sense of adversity produced a kind of camaraderie with my fellow travelers. We offered personal experiences of our journeys so far, swapped stories about the stupid things we'd seen people doing, and shared plans for the rest of our day. I wonder if anybody has studied the positive effect of extreme weather?

I got to go home early too, and saw these tower blocks catching the afternoon sun.

Snow

My flat has a nice view, but I find it hard to photograph. You really have to see it. Here's quite a nice picture of Blackford Hill from this morning anyway.

In other news, snow and ice on Arthur's Seat reduced my time to 17 minutes. On the way down, a walker on his way up warned me of the ice. "I know!" I answered, and did a standing glissade down the path towards him. We did a short dance of awkward laughter and skidding feet until we were both stable again.

Sunday walk

I've started going walks with a local club, and yesterday's outing to Dunkeld was my second. It was a day of classic winter high pressure: clear and cold with banks of fog and frost over everything. A great day for pictures.

That's Schiehallion in the distance looking a bit like Mount Fuji. And to its right, Farragon Hill, which I have managed not to get to a couple of times.

There were predictions of the walk being a mudbath, but the heavy frost made the turf like concrete, and froze lochs most picturesquely.
How nice of those swans to position themselves as pure white accents in the scene.

Savor these delicate harmonies in grey and brown. My next walk will no doubt be soggy and damp.

Yum

I seem to have discovered another talent: baking. We had a sale of baking at work today, and my carrot cake was consumed by ravening coworkers by 10.20. I didn't get a bit myself either, though I did of course get to lick the bowl last night.

I wonder what it is about women and gooey cakes?

I must use my gift wisely.