Snowshoes, and planning

The sun shone brightly this morning so I drank my tea moving between the kitchen (in full sun) and the room with the woodburner (no sun but that lovely glow of warmth from the stove).

Jan, Rose and I decided to head up to Claire's after a couple of phone calls.  Claire lives outside Skellefteå, a four and a half hour drive, about 365 kms away.  Claire has been down with a cold and we weren't so enthusiastic about driving so far in the very chilly weather but she's recovering and the super-cold weather is due to start easing tomorrow.
The drive is almost entirely headed north so Claire's days are an hour shorter than ours, and our days aren't long!  Sunset up there is just now at about 2 AM.
Once that was planned we went out for another snow shoe walk in "our" forest. The sun was on the horizon and sinking as we reached the high point where the photo is taken.
It has been a fantastic winter so far. Once it froze near the start of November it has stayed cold, so the snow has stayed dry and fluffy, and with very little wind it has remained hanging in the trees in true Christmas tree fashion. This is not common so close to the coast and we are thankful to have had so many weeks of this beauty.
Once home it was the usual routine of clearing a little snow, fetching wood for the stove and checking to see all is well in the Red House and Betty's. (Everything was fine.)
So tomorrow morning we will be up early and leaving here at about 9 o'clock, hoping to do most of the drive in daylight. Tomorrow's blip will be from Skellefteå, or somewhere along the way. We'll be about 190 kms south of the Arctic Circle and I think the great outdoors will look fairly much like the great outdoors here, though there are fewer elk and more reindeer!