I’m sitting in my shed/studio, waiting for the heater to have some effect, and trying to make my frozen fingers do some artwork for my latest book. The grass outside is frosty, the air is misty and the car widsceen is frozen over.
I suddenly became aware of a sound. “Wha-woo-woo” A pair od Collared Doves are calling to each other, one in a tree, the other on a tv ariel. I get this sound all summer while I work at the bottom of the garden. It’s only in hearing it again that I realise that they have been silent all winter.
A tiny sign that spring can’t be that far away…
I thought I saw something odd in the pond a couple of days agao. Something was lurking at the bottom – it was ice. But surely Ice floats! It’s been so cold, the whole pond has frozen solid and is melting from the top down so, as I hope you can see from the picture, there is just a shallow covering of water over a huge block of ice. I do wonder how the pond cratures have coped with it. Just before Christmas, there was a lot of Daphnia about. I’ll have to see when it has warmed up again.