To Bed for the Winter

A last check of the spars and foils before parking up the laser for the winter. This beautiful wild garden is just across the road from the sailing club and my dear friends always let me leave it there, safely surrounded by the hares, barn owls, pheasants and flocks of small birds that also live there. Whilst we had coffee and home-made meringues, they all flew up in a startled mob as the resident sparrowhawk swooped through, checking out the feeders. No casualties this time.

It was was the perfect winter's day with clear blue skies, thick frost that persisted and warm sunshine., so after everything was packed up I could not resist another swim. The temperature must have plummeted very low in the night as there was a sharp rim of crunchy ice all around the lake edge. Skiddaw had a touch of white on its peak and the jetty glittered with hoar frost. Gaggles of grey-lag geese were flying in and out from the nearby fields and settling in rafts close by, whilst a couple of goosander ducked underwater near the reeds. Three or four red-shank  piping their way on the wing passed overhead. Everything was enjoying life very much, which was highly infectious, and I bobbed happily along with warm sun on the back of my neck
 I  could see the bottom clearly for much further out which means, I hope, that the cold has killed off the cyanobacteria.