After what seems like a couple of months of almost non stop rain we were promised dry but colder weather. I was quite surprised when it snowed though, just an inch or two lay, which is enough for me. I hadn’t had a decent walk for ages due to all the rain, so I took myself out the back gate this afternoon and took the camera with me. Come and join me on my walk!
Below is the edge of a golf course so it’s a bit more manicured looking.
What do you call these golf things, water traps maybe? Anyway today it was well frozen over.
Yes, that is actually the sun shining on those trees, amazing.
I had the whole place to myself. I saw plenty of dog and dog walker tracks but no sign of actual people or animals, and sadly no deer, even though I went off piste and walked through the woods and rough grass.
It was great to see the sun at last.
I hope that wee stroll blew some of your cobwebs away – it certainly got rid of mine!
What a lovely post, Katrina! Thanks for the walk in the woods. Loved it.
Peggy Ann,
It certainly looks different from when you walked along that way!
“Water hazards” perhaps.
(Most of what I know about golf I’ve learned from reading P.G.Wodehouse books!)
Lovely photos, a good wee skiff of snow.
Valerie,
It probably is water hazard. I think maybe water trap is American, as I think what we call a bunker – they call a sand trap.
It looks beautiful. I’d love some snow here, the New Forest is currently very wet indeed.
Karen White,
Maybe you’ll get some snow soon. It’s lovely when it snows out in the country but I hate the way everything comes to a standstill on the roads. We’ve had an incredible amount of rain, but I shouldn’t moan because we haven’t been flooded like a lot of poor souls.
Fabulous photos. I love the light and the way snow picks out all the details. Just what I needed: a walk in the country!
Joan,
Thanks. It was nice to be able to walk on hard ground, not squelchy as it has been for ages.
What a nice walk! What a difference a little snow and some sunshine make!
Stefanie,
It’s lovely to have the ground all solid and white, instead of the boggy ground we’ve had to get used to. It’s also beginning to get lighter at night now, already!
Katrina, I’m so glad you finally had a taste of real winter. So did we. After reaching an unimaginable 65 degrees on December 24th–yes, I wore summer sandals to my Christmas Eve dinner–our temperatures have been more normal or average, with some very cold dips. But only about 8 inches on the ground now.
I loved the photos! Thank you!
Judith
Judith,
I’m glad you liked them. It’s nice not to be dodging around seas of mud when I’m out walking.
I was wondering if you had ever read anything by Gore Vidal. I can’t find any Americans who have!
Isn’t that funny! Indeed I have not read anything by Gore Vidal! As I recall, his subjects did not interest me. I associated him, too much perhaps, with a stodgier, older generation. It seemed to me that he sometimes wrote about our dear “Founding Fathers” and that was a turn-off, although, of course, he wrote novels on other topics. He was dreadfully upper, upper-class, of course, and that was another turn-off for some people in my mother’s generation.
Katrina,
I do know people who did not hold all of this against him and who enjoyed his books. Men mostly.
Are you reading a book by Vidal? I’d be very interested in your impressions. Note: I never actually read him.
Judith
Judith,
I’ve read a lot of Vidal’s books in the past – and loved them, although I can see why Vidal himself wouldn’t have gone down well with a lot of US people. He used to pop up on our TV at General Election time and he was so wonderfully cynical and also wise about politics. I miss him now.
Judith,
His American history fiction books are far from the usual deferential stories that so often seem to be published, and I think Vidal’s are probably far closer to the truth. He was a wonderful name dropper, which I find hilarious, but he was more or less US aristocracy and ended up being related by marriage to the Kennedys via Jackie K who was a step-sister for a while I think. He was very pro-European and I used to think that it was a wonder that he was still allowed to go back to the US!
That’s the nice thing about the US – Free speech. We don’t ban people just because they say things we don’t like. Unfortunately, that’s also how we end up with …Trump. Scary man. I always saw Vidal as arrogant. Erudite, be arrogant.
Nice walk. I like that level of cold. It’s the preponderance of damp, dank days that will spare the kids having to house me with them in my dotage. Sunny beaches for me!
Americans call water hazards water hazards, and sand traps are also referred to as bunkers here.
Pearl,
Interesting about the bunkers, I’d only heard them being called sand traps at Augusta or wherever.
The rain here has been ridiculous, almost non stop for about two months, even I was thinking about going somewhere sunny – but then people who tried that encountered unexpected rain too, you can’t win sometimes.
Yes Free Speech can be a bit of a bind at times but it’s much better than the alternative. Vidal was arrogant but at the same time I agreed with an awful lot that he said.