Nature’s little Christmas offerings

Today, I got outside for the first time with a new camera – intent on enjoying the first really hard frost of an English winter. With all the moisture frozen out, the air was as clear of fog and haze as you ever get it – like the inside of a temple dome of sharp, clean blue.

Now normally, I might expect to continue in this vein – after years of close-in city living, the sense of the wide roundness of the earth and our smallness within it never ceases to get to me. But today, the camera took me to a different world of miniature magic. With apologies for some of the quality issues, here is a little of what I found –

Privet rebel

Here was this small burst of growth in the middle of my neighbour’s carefully crafted hedge. It’s not that there isn’t something attractive in a well ordered garden, but surely this is what it is all about – the irrepressible and unstoppable urge for growth.

 

 

 

 

Meanwhile, just around the corner….

Wired

 

 

 

 

 

And, on a pathway nearby,

A starling’s christmas dinner?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What more can I say, except “Thank you”?