after the snowstorm

after a wild night of raging winds and whirling snow the morning is white and peaceful, small birds on the peanut feeder trying to regain enough calories to survive another night.

we walk up the road and find broken branches from the holm oaks strewn across, blocking the way. no traffic has attempted our road.

across the road the snow is pristine, and stuck on all the windward surfaces

twigs all caked with snow in the hedges

it’s starting to snow again

but it’s only wet and there’s no wind chill

those of us who need coats pull our collars up.

the camera doesn’t stay in my pocket for long; the blackthorn is especially pretty.

we walk along the field edge; the snow has drifted eight inches deep in places and I am out of breath by the time we find our gap and slide down the snowy ditch into the shelter of the wood.

branches are weighted down and we have to crawl under some, but there is only a dusting of snow underfoot.

we emerge to walk on the new track, which is not such hard work. there is a big hare standing up on the skyline, his size exaggerated by the white field.

clouds breaking up further away, but the snow continues overhead.

certainly worth being out early, everything is icing sugar and christmas cake pretty.

in the sheltered green lane there is not much snow

twigs and branches full of ice where the snow half melted last night, then froze.

clots of snow on every seedhead;

the graphic pattern of the hedge outlined in white.

an oak tree has had a branch ripped off, but mostly it’s the evergreens that suffered from last night’s violence.

we have an interlude of alternately rushing about, and standing still whistling; there are a lot of hares visible – first in the field next to the green lane, and then one in Clip street, and this one is close and constrained by the hedges – it doubles back, so I try to catch Miss T and get knocked flat. then more disappearance – we stand on the junction and whistle – the hare comes trolling down the road – no sign of T … it sees us and turns back, exiting through the hedge on the other side. more calling and whistling, and after five minutes T crawls under the opposite hedge, looking sheepish, blue coat still intact. we saw four hares this morning – after months of seeing none. that is the difficulty of owning a lurcher, unless she is on the lead all the time. luckily big adult hares are very difficult to catch, and most are pretty crafty, compared to dimwit hound, so she ends up going in the opposite direction.

all along Clip street the snow has turned to ice. ice balls fall from high branches, and the shrubs along the farmhouse wall are full of icicles. we come across a car which can’t make it through the snow. (serve them right for taking this narrow lane as a short cut) luckily for them there is a tractor about. the farmer has already cleared broken branches from several places along here.

we take the other green lane back home, and find deep drifts which will keep it shut for a while.

Foundry Row is looking very victorian christmas card, except for the TV ariels and the dustbins, one of which made me think there was a thunderstorm yesterday evening as it went over in the wind. snow has stuck to gable ends and chimneys. (edit; there WAS a thunderstorm, and part of the village has had no electricity for four days)

we are lucky that there was no power outage, although the lights were flickering a lot. the other side of the village was without electricity this morning.