There came both frost and snow ...

What a gorgeous day! Despite the hideous news of swelling coronavirus numbers and fools ignoring restrictions (think Australian beaches and Brecon Beacon invasions), a day like today boosts the feel-good factor no end. We had arranged to pick up the venison today for our New Year dinner - having decided that our not being able to entertain our friends as usual shouldn't mean that we couldn't enjoy our usual annual treat - so after coffee we headed out of town to the stalker's to collect it. I've probably blipped before that our venison supplier goes by the name of Winston Churchill, and though when we first went to him he operated out of his house in a relatively small business, he now supplies labelled venison all over the place, so you may have seen it. On a wonderful crisp morning, it's a treat even in a pandemic to go to the pantry and have a (masked) chat about the world and hear that his son, whom I taught for two years when he was in his mid-teens, now has a young child ...

And then we put the venison in the back of the car and headed off up the track into the hills. The higher hills were white with snow, the track glittered with frost, and it was so cold that my head ached even under a fleece beanie. We passed a mini-hydro station and had intended going all the way up the track to the dam, but were foiled by ice lying right across the track - we'd left our poles and spikes in the car. As we came down, the trees in a patch of sunlight were thawing and dripping, and steam rose from frozen moss banks. My blip shows Mr PB slightly gingerly traversing the slippy rocks underpinning the track, and the improbable gold of a gorse bush in blossom. 

And now I've just been outside in the freezing dark to look at the moon - because there's a perfect halo round it and I've never seen such a thing before. I can't be bothered looking back through blips for another extra to delete so that I can share my halo, but there's an identical photo here, from the 27th, taken from San Francisco, and an explanation if, like me, you are new to this phenomenon.

Cool, huh? (Not to say freezing ...)