Dark Ice, White Snow

Today seems to be a day for relaxing, even though yesterday was a lot quieter than most Christmas Days.  As before I'll blame the tiredness on a combination of it being totally dark at 3 o'clock, and a lack of stimulation in this lock-down life without friends or family to visit, or visiting.
A slow start and then out for a walk. Today we headed down the hill because I could see there were interesting patterns of snow patches on the ice covered lake. I ended up with a group of pictures I thought of blipping but in the end this one made the grade. The others can be found via this flickr tag.
I'm fairly sure that little jetty has been blown, or swept away from it's proper place, and just came to rest by chance at the tip of this headland, before the ice settled and locked it in place for the winter.
The ice is looking more and more firm, as if one could skates out from the shore and cut patterns into that smooth and dark surface. However, the lack of real cold weather made me suspicious and I didn't even tread on the ice in a shallow section.  Further down the lakeshore there was a group of family and friends having an outdoor meeting with a fire burning and lots of chatting groups and small kids running around. The fact that none of them were going out onto the ice was a strong indicator that it really isn't solid yet.
Home again and the quiet life continues...