Golden geese

Such a mild day for mid-January! The morning was grey with soft mizzle, which cleared around lunch time. I went out into the garden briefly this afternoon and saw a buff-tailed bumblebee foraging at the winter-flowering honeysuckle - its pollen sacs were full so it was clearly finding plenty of winter flowers. I stood for a while just inhaling the heady scent of the honeysuckle ... the fragrant flowers of winter somehow seems particularly special.

After a routine trip to Sainsbury's, Rosie and I had a dusk walk around the Rowing Lake. The floodwater's dropped, and we managed to avoid getting wet feet this time. There was a soft shower of fine rain as we arrived, and when the sun appeared briefly through the clouds a rather weak rainbow appeared in the east. But Pete selected these silhouetted geese, neatly lined up at the water's edge, trying to decide whether they needed to escape from Rosie.