Ice Window

After dark last night the temperature suddenly shot up to +4°C and then it rained hard, all night, which seems a dreadful waste of the lovely snow we had. I put the water butt back in place to fill with water, rather than letting the water just run under the house and into the cellar!  
This morning the rain had stopped and I siphoned out the water and could see about a cm of ice coating the sides of the butt. I broke the ice as carefully as I could and set up the ice sections as mini-monoliths (see extra).
The main picture shows the house seen through one of these ice monoliths.
We went out for a breath of fresh air, wearing our spiked shoes as the ground was mostly covered in ice and very slippery. I saw the school bus go by and down the hill and I reflected that the school bus is the reason our steep hill is so well gritted in winter. Once I reached the road life got a bit easier as the gritter had indeed done its work.
Back indoors again I made a few phone calls as there's a lot of jobs being done at the moment. New gutters, new windows, new car tomorrow, and installing a car-charger for the new car. We are trying to fix it so all the jobs get done in the near future, but so they don't all arrive on the same day!
So far, so good!