An Icy Calm.

Golly, don't think I have blogged quite so much for a long time. I feel so inspired by the wintry weather at the moment which is not generally my way. Something about the light calls me out of my warm house to search out the effects the icy days have wrought on the landscape. A cup of tea and some cake - yes, we went with the coffee and walnut in the end - sets me up before I head into the freezing early morning. Not much cake left is there?



The day is strange, the sun taking a break behind the leaden clouds and leaving a steely glow in its wake. Lichen on the old pear tree is bleached of all colour, the gnarled branches providing a wonderfully textured backdrop for the swirls of softest green.



Lady Isabella is already testing my patience today even though she has only been awake a short while. This escape into the quiet of the garden is soothing, but I can hear her lusty lungs bellowing at her elder sister and know I must return to calm her down. On seeing me enter the kitchen she throws herself on the floor in a display of despair worthy of an Academy Award, her tiny prostrate form a study in tragedy and her muffled voice declaring she is 'a bit poorly Mummy. I not fulling well', her ready excuse for when she knows she's in trouble. Oh dear, it's going to be one of those days. Wonderful big sister Lauren tells me she'll look after Isabella while I take Lucy to school and I am gone before her words have completely left her mouth! School, then to the beach I head.



I choose Swanpool Beach from the many close by and am surprised to see the sand glistening with a deep frost. Rifts of rimed and spangled seaweed crunch underfoot as I make my way to the chilly water's edge, stopping all the while to capture the novelty of such a scene. How beautiful it looks.



Everywhere I turn there is more, the frost turning the seaweed into so many strange creatures with icy horns and spiky twisted tails. This one brings seahorses to mind...



and in this I can see a mouse (and I hadn't touched a drop!)



Eventually I move toward the sea and as ever time passes without my notice as the gentle surge of the tide holds my eye. I love this so, love the sea in all her moods. Today she is mellow yet the unusual light casts strange flashes of colour onto the oily surface and I wonder if there is change on its way. I hunker down and lift the camera, and a sudden thought crosses my mind. It makes me laugh as I realise that I have my own form of surfing, trying always, always to catch the perfect wave only for me it will be through the lens rather than on a board. How many hours have I spent doing this? And won't the next one be even better? Just one more...



Today it seems less about the waves as they are little more than ripples, but I want that light, that jade green swirled with summer-sky blue like some amazing marbled cake, but as ever it eludes me and I finally realise I am completely frozen, my breath coming out in painful gasps of ice air. Time to head home and rescue poor Lauren.



As I reach the car, I glance over to the lake opposite the beach after which it is named Swanpool. It is solid, the surface a huge sheet of ice on which the birds stand desolate.



Home once more and the day doesn't improve. Ah well, thank you for some precious time alone, my lovely Lauren. Hmm, actually that reminds me...could she be the reason the cake disappeared so hurriedly?



Quite possibly!

Keep warm xx