Back to the sunset ...

If I keep posting these photos, you're all going to know the view from Toward as well as I do! I need to get out earlier in the day, so that I'm not seduced by shades of gold and red and the outline of my favourite mountains made majestic by snow ...

But the day sort of got the better of me, I think. For a start, I was so tired in the morning that I lay down again after my tea and fell asleep with my neck horribly angled on the extra pillow so that when I got up I felt all ... wrong. However, I did get dressed and put my face on and collected all the dirty washing and took it downstairs with me, so that it was all in the washing machine while I had my breakfast and hung out on the line before I'd cleared up. (No, it didn't really dry, but it came in drier than it went out and it smelled nice and outdoorsy.) I did my Italian - I'm falling down the ratings this week - and had coffee. Then I went out, down to the shops, in my big down jacket over a fleece and a scarf, and did the odd thing that I'd been putting off doing. When I got back, Himself was hacking at a patch of black ice just inside our gate and putting down some salt and grit on the pavement just outside - it didn't get warmer than 1ºC all day. I made a speedy soup with the remains of a cabbage and some onion, garlic, bacon and a fiery Mexican spice mix, added some broken pasta bits, zubbed it all - it was ready by the time he came in and we scoffed the lot. 

By this time it was already well into the afternoon, but I dragged us out some time after 3pm and headed towards the sunset for a very brisk two mile walk (brisk, that is, when I wasn't stopping to take photos). When we got in I did something I'd meant to do in the morning and took all the lights and decorations off the Christmas tree. I had to stop before actually removing the tree - that's for tomorrow. It always makes me sad to take off the wee pretty things and put them away ...

We did, however, make it to Compline tonight (online, after dinner) for the first time since Christmas, which restored a feeling of normality. And then we watched the News and realised the hideous loss of normality happening to so many people in California - I feel I've gained insights into the worries of wildfires in the time I've been following Wildwood's journal. 

The temperature outside now, according to my watch, is -3ºC, and there is a cold river of air running down our stairs because the loft hatch is always open.