White and black

...and maybe a touch of blue, a hint of peach in that cold, post-sunset sky. A glorious, lonely walk in the upper reaches of Benmore Gardens was enough to restore the equanimity lost in the efforts and disappointments of yesterday, made the more poignant by the knowledge that it'll be some months before I see my grandsons again. But when I wonder why we choose to live in this out-of-the way place, a moment like this reminds me.

We crunched our way through quite thick snow, which I think must have thawed slightly and then frozen again - the crust was really hard, and up here was only marred by the footprints of deer, birds and something else which exploration showed to be a dog exploring away from its human, whose footprints we discovered further down.

The other joyous thing was that we weren't down till 4.50pm and it wasn't dark. It's still winter, but it won't be winter for ever!