Freezing COLD!

Oh boy, totally freezing today, had to scrape the ice off the car first thing (the de-icer spray had managed to get lost somewhere too, which didn't help), didn't take my gloves off all the way in (most unusual) and peering out the office window it looks like all the buildings are on fire thanks to all the moisture clouds billowing from the air conditioning units on the rooftops...

In other news, between now and January the 4th I now don't have to work any more than 3 days in any one week! Woo hoo!! :)

Freezing C.C.COLD!!!

Oh Boy...it has been *freezing* the last few mornings, wouldn't be so bad apart from the fact that (patting myself on the head) I'm still walking to the station in the mornings (got my time down to about 21 minutes now, front door to platform bench) but that is certainly more than enough time to both work up a bit of a sweat stomping over the hill and to get freezing cold extremities (which is an annoyingly uncomfortable combination), I'm sure when I got to the station and fumbled to unzip (with numb fingers) my coat a cloud of steam emerged from my skiing jacket...Anyway, there are a few positives, as of yesterday I'm not having to do the trudge in the pitch black, two weeks ago I had a particularly eventful walk - both a fox and I scared each other half to death in the middle of the woods, and then two minutes later I almost squashed a huge toad (sat right in the middle of the path) into strawberry jam...it's just such a relief for the wildlife and I to have fair warning of each others approach... ;)

Oh and of course, it's nice to be able to take the odd picture again, these shots I took on the other side of the hill, not sure how long it's been going on (as it's been too dark to see) but it looks like someone is busy converting the old horse field next to the railway line into vegetable allotments, which is nice, it's been sat there doing absolutely nothing for *years*... ;)

Surrey Snow...

...just a quick update, I never made it home from London, thanks to *four* broken down trains on the Brighton line my only choice was to head to Oxted (to my folks) where I am still stranded...we've got (no joke) about two feet of snow outside the house, all Southern trains are suspended and even the satellite service here has packed up (so no TV), I'm just about to head back down to the station now to see if there is any news, but this is *proper* winter and we are properly snowed in! Brrr!

Wish me luck!

Winter on the way...

...(thankfully, or we would doubtless have been late to our various ports of call) clued in by Carol Kirkwood I actually had to scrape a thick layer of ice from the car windscreen this morning before we could depart...and yesterday there were reports of snow in the south east...

Winter is definitely on the way...brrr!

Widemouth Bay and Bude at Christmas

Back to the break now, we spent ten minutes or so defrosting Poppy the Beetle and letting the engine warm up a little bit and then (extremely cautiously) picked our way along the ice covered roads towards Widemouth bay, which looked astonishing (normally only being privvy to it in clement conditions) with the thick covering of ice -


- nothing was stopping Flyingpops though, so we splashed on down to the sea -

- where I got a nice shot of the beach -

- it was (however) a little on the chilly side, so our stay was reasonably brief...next stop was Bude (just a few minutes drive away), as we left we spotted this guy running along the beach with his dog carrying a skull and crossbones and an anarchists flag -

- (a little odd), he looked like he was going to carry on all the way up the cliffs before we left him in our dust...

Bude was much the same as last time I was here (for Tim's Stag do) -

- we checked out the shops (Flyingpops buying a very posh new knitted hat for a couple of quid) and found a gift shop we had been told about which had everything (except the fudge) discounted by 75%, so Flyingpops went a bit mad buying model Campers and Beetles, Cream Tea themed mugs and other touristy bits that had obviously not been selling too well over the summer...and laden down with carrier bags we popped into a little pasty shop -

- for a spot of lunch -

- before heading back to the site to show off our pirate booty and get ready for our trip out in the afternoon... ;)

OMG! It is COLD!

Seriously, -6.5C in daylight...that is pretty cold! I took a little walk around the place (wrapped up very warm indeed) -