Sunset Long Gone

Winter is here! Real winter, when the temperature never rises above zero, minus 10°C is nothing to remark about, and the air is dry and crisp. It is a joy to be outside in such weather, assuming you have suitable clothes and a warm home to retreat to!  It's certainly a lot nicer, and even feels "warmer" than those damp winter days with +° temperatures we have been having. Our ten-day forecast now doesn't have anything warmer than -4°C and drops to -16°C. Wonderful weather!!!
As for today...
Jan starts her Blip; "We had a plan." It included a walk in the sun up by the High Coast Bridge. Unfortunately the car had other plans and we spent an hour faffing around before we got the motor running.  (See her blip for details.) So we arrived here quite a while after the sun had set. It was however still light and the colours were wonderful so we wandered around taking a lot of pictures. This particular one was taken from the outside balcony of the High Coast Hotel, hence the Christmas lights in the foreground.
You can see the same view from October 2018 in this extra picture from then. This picture probably would have been my main blip but Jan got there first. We both loved the lines in the witches hat climbing frame in the kids' playground, all silhouetted against the glowing sky.
We filled the cars with fuel on the way home. The previously damp weather gave us more problems, because the cover over the petrol cap had frozen in position but ten minutes of gentle persuasion did the trick.
Once home we emptied the freezer in the cellar, stacking everything outside where it wasn't going to warm up much. It is well over a year since we defrosted the freezer so it needed it, and emptying and refilling it is a good reminder of what we have in there.  When I next make burgers I can choose between reindeer mince and elk mince!!
I feel very sorry for family and friends in the UK who are once more locked down, probably for quite a few weeks.  If we were locked down in a similar way it wouldn't make that much difference to our way of life, but there's a big difference between choosing a careful path, and being forced to walk the same path. I just hope the lockdown works and the pressure eases off the NHS and lives are saved.