Christmas mists

Christmas has been cloudy and quiet with drifting mists, the landscape soft and subtle, a subdued beauty. Walking in the woods and fields has been calming and relaxing. At home, family, food and fire.

A Frosty Christmas Day Stroll

Across the mist to the Cromdale Hills

Christmas Day has been quiet and cold with mist filling the valleys and frost coating the ground. Early afternoon saw a few hours of sunshine on the slopes above Strathspey. Underfoot the ground, frozen and white, crunched with every step. Puddles were frozen. Gates and stiles slippery with ice. The glare of the bright sun hid the high Cairngorms to the south. Across shrouded Strathspey the Cromdale Hills rose into a blue sky. Drifting cloud came and went over the summits. The mist rose and fell, at times threatening to envelop us. A buzzard flapped lethargically from a fence post as we approached, soon settling again a few hundred yards further on. In the field it was watching rabbits ploughed dark trails through the frosted grass.
 

Remants of the last snowfall

The woods were dark. We peered in but stayed out in the fields, in the sunshine. There would be other days for exploring the sombre winter forest. Today the sun was welcome though there was no warmth in the brightness. In areas shaded from the south-westerly winds and rain that brought the big thaw last week crisp snow still covered the ground.
  

The mist rises

As we turned for home the mist was thickening below and starting to rise up the hillsides. Soon after we were inside and warm with hot drinks in front of the fire it surrounded the house. Just a few hours of sunshine then. But a lovely few hours.

A Quiet Christmas

On Boxing Day

Mist, frost, snow, ice, rain, wind, even, occasionally, sunshine – the first part of Christmas (we adhere to the traditional 12 days) has seen a mix of rapidly changing weather with much freezing and thawing. Christmas Eve began with the last and was mostly damp and dull. The cloud though gave way to a lovely orange sunset followed by an almost full moon rising in to the sky.

Christmas Eve Sunset

 Later in the evening as the clouds continued to thin a giant halo – the biggest I’ve ever seen - formed round the moon with the bright dot of Jupiter inside the ring.

Christmas Eve moon halo with Jupiter

The soft nondescript weather continued on Christmas Day but we did venture out for a stroll in the wet woods and fields. Boxing Day dawned brighter and sharper with a frost on the grass and a sharp nip in the air. Layers of thin clouds streaked the sky and patches of mist lay in the glens. In the distance the white snowy peaks of the Cairngorms shimmered in the weak sunlight. I worked off some of the Christmas Dinner  - a delicious melanzane alla parmigiana (aubergine and cheese bake – it sounds better in Italian)  with garlic roast potatoes for which much thanks to stepdaughter Hazel – by cutting wood for the fire before we headed off to wander in the chilly sunshine and gaze out on the misty mountains and dark woods. 

Wood Cutting

Boxing Day Walk

Since then wind and rain has swept in but snow is forecast for the early hours of the morning of the 30^th. Whatever the weather the countryside will be glorious.

Boxing Day Walk

Xmas Already?

The Christmas Lights are up in Grantown-on-Spey. There's still a week of November left. Oh dear!

Daisies, Ice & Mice; Canoes, Reindeer & Flaming Torches: An Unusual Christmas

 So Christmas has come and gone. Warm weather, no snow, green countryside – it has not felt like winter, other than the short days and long nights. Christmas here in Strathspey began with the arrival of stepdaughter Hazel and boyfriend James up from Edinburgh until early January to the delight of Hazel’s mum Denise and me.

The day before Xmas Eve we ventured into the woods and finding a pine brought down in recent storms acquired some branches for Hazel to bind together into a thick, bushy and aromatic ‘Christmas tree’. Back home we brought out the box of Xmas decorations for its annual emergence into the light only to find that mice had been nesting in it and had ruined many of the decorations. The result was an austere minimalist tree, though still attractive with glass stars and silvery lights. And a resetting of the mouse trap – a metal box they can enter but not escape from (except for some damn clever ones that have managed it somehow). Since obtaining this new trap a month ago well over 30 mice have been caught and released into the woods. Maybe some are the same ones returning. Or maybe there are just masses of them, far more than in previous years.

The day also saw a first visit from our new neighbours, who I expect we’ll be seeing again as they run the company Backcountry Survival. Their visit also explained the presence of a large canoe in a ditch near our house. They’d moved in during the recent stormy and wintry weather and it had blown away and then frozen into place.

The Christmas feeling continued that evening with the Grantown-on-Spey Torchlight Procession with flaming brands and Santa in a sledge pulled by reindeer from the Aviemore Reindeer Centre and led by a pipe band, followed by carol singing in the town square. The air wasn’t as frosty as usual but the bright torches and the reindeer did create a sense of midwinter celebration.

Xmas Day we always go for a short walk after opening presents (outdoors stuff – well, I did get a calendar with pictures of bears!). Often it’s in the snow; usually it’s in frosty, wintry conditions. This year the mild weather that had swept away the snow in one huge thaw a few days earlier meant it felt more like September than December even though there was a brisk wind. The fields were green and in one we even found daisies in flower, an astonishing first for Xmas. Surprisingly there was still ice on some of the puddles, though most of the ground was soggy and muddy, released from frost and snow back into the saturated state it’s been in much of the year.

Dinner, Dr Who, charades, friends round on Boxing Day, cutting wood for the fire, mince pies, Xmas cake, Terry Pratchett’s Hogfather DVD – Christmas continued as a mix of excitement, entertainment, eating, conversation and overall satisfaction. Now for New Year, and maybe snow.