Window in the weather

Dawn brought a fabulous clear sky, bright sun ... forget the ice on the path. The forecast was awful so, a quick breakfast and out, up the hill to the woods. Pure, clean air. No bluebells yet, though the leaves are there. Too early for primroses. You must be bored with daffodils by now so here's a ribes, a flowering currant.

Silence broken only by a blackbird at full throttle, a pair of pigeons, a pheasant's alarm call across the field, a woodpecker pecking wood, and that was definitely a peacock. Who's got one of those?

Funny thing, we all know what a woodpecker sounds like, yet whenever I've watched one actually pecking at a tree, it's been noiseless. So is that noise really a call?

From the hilltop above Cromarty I could see across Sutherland to Caithness. Definitely some heavy weather up there. Then I glanced west up the Firth, and saw a wall of ice coming. my way So rapidly downhill, pausing only to watch a tree creeper creeping. Home just in time to beat the hailstorm and make a monster coffee.