Still Freezing

 

First, to establish, that is not Bert - it was his late Uncle Paddy who kept sheep. Bert hasn't bothered with sheep, except for a time when he was a boy. He tells me that it was selling the lambs that got him the money for his first greenhouse and set him off on a different career.

Here at Springhill, it is just one degree above freezing and it's been foggy all day. I have to go out later to pick Hannah up (taxi cabs are rare as hen's teeth) and I've just watched a YouTube tutorial on locating the foglights on a Toyota Hiace van. It's been a while.

In other news, Pippin has been spayed and will be allowed out again when she has completely recovered. Personally, I think her vet is a bit of a fusspot for she's been out already. She doesn't stay long. Two months as a house cat has softened her up.

Out buying my Guardian this morning and another interesting man caught my eye. Curly hair, bearded, fiftyish - had that bodhran player vibe going on. He bought The Times. I was sad for him.

Every Picture: Buzzard's Eye View

Even though I've been living on this road for more than twenty years I don't really know the neighbours that well. Obviously, we know Clint but then we did sell him the property, the first one we had on the road. And then there is the guy that laid the lino. He was actually mid-job when he told us he lived down the road. His daughter turned up at a barbecue once and she was here for a couple of hours before I even realised she was a neighbour. And there's Mr Twinkle, the one with the boating lake but I'm not sure he even lives there anymore. There's Jimmy but sure, everyone knows him. Our nearest neighbours on the road I don't know at all, wouldn't recognise them if I met them in the Spar yet, as of yesterday, there has been social media conversation. That's modern day communication for you, it's like texting someone in the next room or Facebook messaging your daughter from the kitchen to her bedroom.

It happened like this - I was on Twitter looking for information on something that had occurred locally and I came across a snippet of film taken in the Cullybackey area. The camera man (our neighbour) had filmed it using a drone. The special thing about the film was that it was taken on a very foggy morning so was tremendously atmospheric.

I retweeted it and sent this message,

I hope Steven won't mind if I share this screen grab from his film. The foreground shows our own wee hame and the woods behind. I think the mistiness is rather beautiful.

Click to make big

I called this post A Buzzard's Eye View even though I reckon no sensible buzzard would ever venture out on a morning like that.