A frosty day

Now that we start our countdown to longer days, having passed the winter solstice, it seemed fitting that this morning there was the most spectacular, fiery sunrise. It was a very cold and crisp morning with bright skies and frost.

The common looked wonderful with everything covered in frost and the smaller bushes were quite frozen (see extra). Here the small trees are covered in frost and there is a mistiness hanging above the cold, frozen plants. Xena wore a coat today, and we met a few other Vizslas and they were all wearing coats - on a day like today she shakes so much from the cold that I need to put a coat on her.

Gavin played golf again today and said that he has never been so cold, it was miserable for the first few holes and it did not really warm up. 

I popped out to get the last few presents, just small present filler things, and then came home and wrapped them and so now I am all done. Tomorrow I am getting the fresh veggies for the Christmas dinner, the ordered Christmas meats will be collected on the 24th, and if we don't have anything after that it is bad luck and we will do without.

We are meant to be hosting my niece and her family on Boxing day but they are full of this super cold so we will check at the end of the week to decide what to do. Luckily I managed to order another box of lateral flow tests from the NHS today after they have been out of supply for about 2 weeks, as we will need to all test before we meet up.

Wales has introduced stricter Covid restrictions, and I am sure England will follow but the PM has said not before Christmas. Cases are rising everywhere - I do get annoyed when I see statistics listing countries who currently have the most cases by sheer numbers - unless the figures are per 100,000 people they are not meaningful. In any event we are relieved not to be travelling anywhere after Christmas although the boys are really sad to be missing out on yet another year of skiing, they really enjoy skiing over winter. When Luke took a gap year after school and did his ski instructor course he skied every single day without a break for nearly 4 months, now he has not skied for 2 years. I wonder if life will ever return to normal again or we will face another variant every winter.