Perfect balance
We celebrated the spring equinox
With three days of snow.
But that doesn’t matter –
The equinox is the time when the world is
In perfect balance:
That moment when the light of day
And the dark of night are equal
All around the world.
And now, here in the northern hemisphere,
We go towards lighter times…
Even if we are enjoying the coldest ever winter this spring!
For more, balanced skies, please visit: Skywatch.
Frosted times
Let me take you back to the end of October last year,
To a cold day of frosted eyelashes on leaves.
It was a stunning bright day
Perfect for a drive out to the horse ranch
Sporting its old Grand Central clock on the side of the barn.
The brilliance of the sun
Turned the wires into art
And behind the frosted thistles
I discovered a secret world of rainbow bubbles.
On the way home, I stopped to admire
The endurance of this ancient rune stone
(And to wonder if the Simpsons was based on the pattern on the stone…
Look at those eyes!)
For more good times, please visit: Our World.
Frosted skies
It’s cold and deliciously wintery now.
But a couple of weeks ago,
When it seemed as if winter would never arrive,
The promise of winter hung in
The frosted sky
Painting hopes and lake
With glorious tones of gold.
For more fabulous skies, please visit: Skywatch.
Frosted flowers
It’s still too mild and grey for November, so I’m looking back to the end of October
When the frost presented a cheery iced sun;
And a wild pink rose
Covered in cold eyelashes.
Further on, a rose bud
Shimmered with melted hopes and ice –
And I found myself
At the beating heart of nature itself.
For more flowery scenes, please visit: Our World.
Of silver and feathers
After many days of mild grey weather,
The early morning light
Carried whispers on the breeze
Of a frosty world of silver.
(See how the iced reeds match the bark of the silver birches?)
In the silence of that iced-over dawn
Peace floated down
As light and beautiful as a feather.
For more peace, please visit: Our World.
Leaf ballet
Autumn was short-lived and intense this year.
But last weekend I had an amazing experience.
In the distance, I saw a sunny bower of branches
And a shower of leaves dancing in the wind as they fell to the ground.
I stood under those trees and listened.
The leaves danced and twirled and fluttered down on me,
Sounding like gentle rain as they came to rest on hair, ground and an icy bench.
I like to look for the new beginnings in these ends.
Don’t leaf without visiting: Our World.
Frosted heron
Frosted boats in the early morning light.
A heron bows to the beauty of a crisp early morning
Before flying off
And lending its own poetry to the sky.
For more flights of fancy, please visit: Camera Critters.
Golden Y-ears
Last week was Oscar’s birthday
(He’s the dog)
And a gloriously frosty day.
The delicate inner ear of a rose
offered up its secret beauty.
Sunlight sparkled on the pink ears
Of a brave flower still in bloom.
We visited a thousand-year-old rune stone
Rising out of the ground like a tooth,
To remind us that these are the golden years,
The moments to seize, to bathe in,
To remember while they last.
For more golden moments, please visit: Our World.
Winter sunflowers
I love the bare bones of winter. The windswept solitary landscapes that speak of cold and golden moments of stillness.
It’s a mistake to think that winter is a dead season. It’s a season of well-deserved rest for nature,
And beneath those bones, there is furious activity after a long period of sleep. Seeds are popping, roots growing,
Flowers waiting patiently to be born.
Beneath the weight of ice and snow, there is a feeling of something more…
Something is waiting there.
It’s just that we can’t see the whole story.
Yet.
For more winter (or summer skies), please visit: Skywatch.
Extraordinary ordinary
Not much happens in my life. I work, I play, I laugh, I cry.
I focus on the small wonders of life.
A luminous leaf nestled in diamonds.
A strawberry jewel in the frost.
I have faith – even in the dark times – that there is beauty in the ordinary
And that life, in all its frailty, still contains the miraculous.
For more beauty, please visit: My World.
My street
Nothing – and everything – happens on my street.
Lives are lived out in tears and laughter.
Seasons enjoyed and wondered at.
First hard frost
My street is just that – a street with twenty-one houses flanking both sides.
Some of the houses are right on the lake – but not ours. (Which is probably just as well as I would be glued to the windows with a camera in my hand!)
I can open the door and find myself by the lake in a few seconds flat – ready to document the first snow that arrived only five days after the first hard frost – and which sadly disappeared only a day later.
First snow
If you walked with me by the lake, we might stop to admire the rickety old jetty with its view of the farm on the other side of the water.
We could laugh with joy as we watch the melting snow bouncing on the path to create rainbows.
And, if we’re really lucky, we could catch those magical snowflakes and appreciate the beauty of our seemingly mundane lives.
For more magic, please visit: My World. (And remember to click each photo to enlarge it.)
Through frosted glasses
September became October and offered the early riser a perfect lawn of lacy grass.
Crunchy frostiness underfoot. Tingling fingers encased in long-forgotten gloves.
The ghostly ground veiled in white offered the perfect contrast to the rich colours of trees and house.
A tree laden with rowan berries – a harbinger of a snowy winter. Peeking through the branches, a shy farm displays its new roof of frost, as if to say: At last! Autumn is here!
For more glimpses of the world around us, visit: That’s My World!
The search for colour
Sometimes – in that hiatus between real winter and the thaw that teases us with hints of the spring to come…
… the world becomes a haze of grey skies and slushy snow the colour of old leaves.
That is when the spirits soar on the discovery of some much-needed colour.
Sometimes it is hard to see the beauty that is staring you every day in the face.
On a cold and frosty morning
England and parts of France are currently shivering in temperatures that over here in Sweden can best be described as balmy, fairly warm and a side effect of global warming: – 5 C to – 7 C. It is provoking outbursts like “When did we last wake up to such hard frost?” Well – the obvious answer is not within living memory….
Now, this isn’t quite true as my sister then went on to say: “Do you remember when?”
The winters of our childhood (well, when we found ourselves in the UK, that is – which wasn’t so often) were always white. And cold. With huge snowdrifts that could gobble you up. And they did!
My dad caught us frolicking in the snow as kids on his cine camera. One moment, I was a be-coated happy figure in hats and gloves, the next I had disappeared from sight. Fallen into the largest snow drift in the garden that, quite literally, covered me from head to foot.
Exit a cold and bawling Lady Fi.
But in recent years, such crisp air and glittering frosts have been sadly lacking: so far and few between that when they do occur, they inspire my sister to rush out with her big camera and get snapping. I’m proud to say that she’s done a great job!
A spider’s web becomes a delicate pearl necklace. An ice-coated leaf a hidden treasure glinting in the sun.
Her kids finally get to experience some of the magic of a white winter. Long walks, apple cheeks, bundled up in warm clothes, hot steaming drinks that thaw out cold fingers and toes.
My sister and I so vividly remember school holidays with friends (the boys). Toboganning down steep slopes at hair-raising speeds (not a helmet in sight!), sometimes using our heads as brakes at the bottom of the hill on the hard iron fence. (Yes – it hurt. Thanks for asking. And yes, it does explain quite a bit about me!)
Once, I used my behind as a brake, merrily tearing holes in my trousers and legs. Another time, we hit a huge bump camouflaged as snow. My friend and I were shot up into the air and flung out onto the snow like stranded snowfish, while the old-fashioned wooden sled came crashing down and broke into many pieces. (That was the end of poor Rosebud.)
Oh – those were the good cold days! But imagine waking up to this glorious sight as they did in England yesterday.
The good cold days are back!
(All photos taken by my sister. N-ice one, sis! Oh – and I promise you some donkey poo stories soon…)
Who says what?