Morning light on frozen trees

It was sunny and bright today, but ever so cold - I only got to the woods to walk Xena at about 10.30 this morning and it was -2C. The areas that are in full sunshine have little snow left, but those areas in the shade are still covered in snow from the snowfall on Sunday night. The cold and sunny weather is due to change again, and next week we will have rain again - it hasn't rained for a few weeks now, its been great to walk without Xena getting all muddy.

Every year some kind person decorates a particular tree on the heath, and this year they have done it again - see the extra.

Today we had our book club Christmas lunch. The restaurant was full of people having Christmas lunches, and while we chose the Christmas menu there were options and none of us chose turkey, we had duck instead. Interestingly the roast turkey dish was double the calories compared to the duck dish (restaurants/restaurant groups with staff of over 100 have to display calories on their menus in a newish law in the UK). It was delicious food although the service was a bit slow and so I only left the restaurant at 4pm.

I still don't have my car back as the motor dealer was trying to get the new alloy rim on the special insurance policy I took out when I bought the car - it turns out that policy expired last year so I have to pay for a new alloy rim, and I cannot leave it as is as the car won't pass it's MOT with a cracked alloy rim. More unexpected expenses....