Snowy Walk in the Woods

On Saturday it was a beautiful sunny day, about –3 and perfect for a walk in the woods.  We walked from our flat up to Hockley woods and revelled in the fantastic snowy environment.  England definitely looks a lot better covered in snow, less concrete and softens all the dreary bits.

We spent about 2.5 hours walking through the fields and the forest and saw lots of birds and lots of snow covered trees.  Alfie, our cat has been a bit shocked at all the cold white stuff and refuses to go out unless pushed our the window.  He looks about quickly then runs back inside to groom his furry paws.

 

 

Alfie checking out the roof.  He is a bit interested but realistically loves his comforts and cold, wet paws are not comfortable

Snowy field near the woods

Corinne expressing her emotions via dance

 

Beautiful

 

Snowy track through the woods

 

 

Snow covered Oaks – all looking great.

 

Gorgeous couple

  

A very strange little Robin that is either very friendly or sick.  He/She sat around and allowed us to take photos of him from about 20cm away.  He was very hungry so we bought him some food and are gonna take it out to him tomorrow.  Its generally very hard to get photos of these guys as they move about so much and are a bit shy.

From about 5cm away

 

 

OMG its Snowing

I love snow, so white, so soft and so cold.  So much fun, except for what it does to the roads and traffic.  It started snowing last night and now we have had about 10-15cm in South East England.  Everyhting looks a little bit nicer when its covered in white.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tasty Snow covered, late season Apples

 

 

Our Flat

Sunset

 

Our Back yard

 

Snow covered apple trees

Winter Walk in the Woods

Today on a rare moment for me back in Essex we went for a walk in Hockley woods.  The weather wasn’t too bad and the woods look very different now without there leaves and there are lots of great fungi around on moss covered logs.

 

 

Holly

 

 

Birch trunk covered in fungi

Cool squidgy purple fungi – we have never seen these before

 

 

 

Pembrokeshire

About 4 weeks ago we spent a pleasurable long weekend with Shannon and Myles in Pembrokeshire, Wales.  We stayed in a small village called Little Haven right on the coast and we had terrible crazy weather the whole time, with high winds and rain making the news.  We had to spend our time mostly driving or inside as the weather really was horrible.  we had lots of great food and a few drinks too.

Little Haven also had 3 pubs which we visited and spent a considerable amount of time in on Saturday night.

We had a lovely time and highly recommend the area.

 

Row of houses in Little Haven

 

Little Haven Bay, lots of mussels on the rocks and very cold water

 

The bay with a river coming out and a boat ramp

The view of Little Haven from the walk along the cliffs

 

More LH

Rugged coastline

More Ruggednessness

The only bit of outside the whole weekend

Very intelligent men, obviously doing something intelligent

A bit wind blown, and a little bit crazy looking.

 

The Swan inn, it had a well out the back that was very inviting on a Saturday night after 10 beers

Mussels

Finally Vienna

At the end of our holiday about 6 weeks ago we stopped off in Vienna for 3 nights.  The weather continued to be cold and wet and it snowed, sleeted or rained with heavy wind for most of the time.  We still looked about covered in multiple jackets and beanies and gloves and raincoats etc.  We went and watched the Lipizzaner horses at the Spanish riding school do some training which was interesting, especially the little dance they do when standing still. 

We also visited the Natural History museum which was excellent and warm and provided a good day trip.  They have the most amazing and comprehensive collection of creatures and rocks and fossils etc from all over the world.

We also visited the Schönbrunn Palace which is where lots of important Austro-Hungarian snobs lived for years.

By the time we got to Austria we were completely sick of dumplings and pork and sauerkraut, so luckily down the road from our hotel we found a really nice Sushi restaurant run by Asians that provided us finally with something else to eat – brilliant.

White Lipizzaner Horseys going to practice

 

A cool fossil full of crystals

A genuine Austrian Eskimo

Lots of dead butterflys

 

Hamster

Real big pretty dead butterflys

The facade of the natural history museum

Cold and wet

 

Schonbrunn palace looking at the Glorietta

 

The palace from up at the glorietta