Deer in the garden

I feel deeply guilty that I'm still enjoying the snow so much! For the readers of this blog that do not live in Scotland I'll explain why! Several hundred people were forced to sleep in their cars in the Central Belt of Scotland (that's the area between Glasgow and Edinburgh), due to some staggering incompetence by the Scottish Government, who then made things even worse by blaming the weather forecast. Well, both the BBC and the ITV weather forecasts were spot on with their predictions for lots of snow and even got the timing right but despite this the Scottish motorways remained ungritted. So cars and lorries jackknived, blocking the roads, preventing the snowploughs from getting through. There was nowhere left to go and the police advised people to stay in their cars. Some drivers ended up being in their car, on the motorway, for more than a day.

And if I tell you that the outside temperature here at Macbiehill was minus 16 degrees Celsius, sleeping in a car can't have been any fun at all, specially as cars were running out of fuel due to keeping the heating ticking over. We were laying in our warm, cosy bed last night listening to the news on the radio, and hearing snowed-in drivers phoning the radio station to report on their woes. Definitely not Scotland's finest hour.

So I'm feeling bad about going out this morning for my walk along the lane and being in tears with the unadulterated, all-emcompassing beauty all around me. The sun was out, the ice had transformed even the fences into stunning works of art and I took an entire camera card full of pictures. The one just above these words is my blip for today.

But the picture I'm most pleased with and the event which caused me the greatest joy was the view of the deer in our garden shown at the top of this blog. Technically this pic is rubbish as it was taken through a window and with flash, not a good combination. But to have the deer there was wonderful. They just stood there and watched me taking their picture. Even the flash did not move them. Yes, I know, they are eating the ivy, the cotoneasters and will no doubt start on the roses before too long, but as long as that will keep them alive, they have my blessing (not John's, though!).

There is more cold, freezing weather forecast (I hope someone takes notice, in the upper echelons of Scotland's government) and yes, it is true, I'm looking forward to another beautiful day, in this wide, white world.