First hard frost of the winter

This low patch in the middle of the field next to the river only floods in really heavy rain or when the river comes over the bank. The river's not quite there yet, but this was flooded yesterday and frozen today - it hasn't even warmed up enough for this to have melted by late afternoon today.

Bil steps his way particularly delicately over the ice - yesterday they were both charging through the water like mad things.

The larger pond in the nature reserve is too deep and probably has too many fish/waterfowl in it to freeze too easily. This is the much shallower pond next to it - the warden has recently opened up the trees and undergrowth around it, so there's very little shelter now.

I'm still not very good at this timer thing - it's a case of sit the dogs down, set the camera going then rush round to the front! They're usually very puzzled, and look it.
Made a fabulous steak and kidney casserole on Sunday, then managed to finally succumb to a migraine just before we sat down to eat it and had to retire to bed hors de combat. To add insult to injury I missed the last episode of Ray Mears (caught up this evening) and Top Gear too! However, a good night's sleep has resulted in a complete recovery as usual. No idea what triggered it - in the background all day, but didn't stop me from doing the farmers' market or whizzing to Harlow Carr (in the rain) for some Christmas shopping, or training for that matter. But when it finally hits there's no arguing.
Not been on the river for weeks now - the river was thinking about going down today, though not by much as there's so much water slowly draining out of the Aire valley. But it's been raining heavily now since about 8pm so it'll be up again. I shall go and take my frozen nose and nearly-as-cold feet to bed, which is mercifully pre-warmed by my electric blanket (OMG that sounds so middle-aged but really I don't care) and curl up with my current bedtime reading: Francis Pryor's Britain BC. And then I have a nice little ongoing daydream at the moment involving roundhouses....






























