Steaming River..Winter at last

Finally after months of dull, shapeless, grey skies we have the winter we have been looking for.The land is covered in white and grass crunches satisfyingly underfoot.The cold air snaps at hands and catches in warm sleepy lungs.Winter grabs you by the throat and demands,"Are you alive?"

The morning starts with these colours. Colours to get lost in.

The frost sparkles on the wooden rails, gleaming silver, ponies in the shade look cold and unimpressed by the fence's new beauty, standing still, looking down their very long noses at my exuberance.

I am trying to walk our dog without the habitual list of stuff in my head to do once I have walked the dog, and remember why we have a dog to walk with at all.She sniffs the leaves and probably has all manner of associations that I am oblivious to. Fox smell and otter spraint, owl pellets these signs I can get but after that the woodland animals nightlife remains a mystery to me.While Jessie dog is sniffing around in her world, I can take the time to look at all the little things.We investigate our habitat, Jessie mainly with her nose and me mainly with my eyes. Seeing changes in texture and form like this lichen.

 The river side is noticeably much colder, steam rises of the water.

I can feel the river's vitality in my lungs.Yes, I am awake and alive.

We walk on through the fields to our veg garden,left over survivors from the summer, corn marigolds are frozen.

Last summer's windmill, to scare away the jays from the broad beans, is also frozen still, colours lost to the weather.

Our garden is pretty dormant apart from a whole load of brassicas that my mum gave me as seedlings, with the words, "Not sure what they are, there were some sprouts, broccoli and I think these might be kale or was that the kale?". Anyway now we have a patch of still mainly unidentifiable brassicas, maybe this was supposed to be the brussel sprout plant.Thanks for the green stuff Mum.

Tomorrow is the second day of home schooling for Daisy.Once a week we get to home school with her. Last week it was my first turn and, despite a cold, she insisted we start at 8am (gulp!) We did some yoga, researched Jupiter, planned future projects, did some maths, designed a moon landing flag, and generally whizzed through activities like space speed freaks, not quite what I had pictured!!! I am wondering how Daddy will fare, with a daughter who loves to learn but doesn't like to be told ( so unlike me ha ha ha). I am hoping they will have warm star biscuits baked ready for my morning gardening break.Yum. Enjoy the sparkly days x