Another snowy day in paradise.

Numerous birds have descended on our garden by the flock.
A very spiky bush is the venue they have chosen to become Chez Trabroun.
30 of them!!!! We get an early morning chorus at 04.00 even when it's dark; our neighbour has commented on ?Have you heard some birds recently?? errr, yes, they are all residing in our garden.
So whilst the others ignore these early morning twitters, the dogs chase the birds, I had decided to feed them and now I have sparrows, finches, a starling, doves, thrushes, blackbirds and the odd crow flown in for good measure. We even get a beakful of abuse from them when we activate the outside security light when letting the dogs out for a final wee before bedtime.

So what has this blip to do with birds?

Well, my aunt many years ago gave my parents a Victorian garden bird feeder dish. As the birds are getting the seeds thrown on the frozen lawn, their drinking / bathing water has been placed in this dish.
Similar to the last few days, it was frozen solid, so I attempted to defrost it under the tap in the kitchen. As it started to melt it developed lots of bizarre ice sculptures.

Fortunately I had defrosted this earlier this afternoon as whilst we were sitting having dinner we heard a "gush " - fantastic, burst pipe - grrrrrr
Need to go, stopcock to turn off, pipe to fix, plumber to phone