Snowy Farewell

That was the view that greeted around about eight o'clock yesterday morning from the front door of the cottage. Although the photo doesn't quite do it justice, the snow on the branches of Hummer Hedge and the apple tree right behind it was rather fetching. By the times that we departed the cottage near noon, however, most of it had either melted or fallen from the branches.

We call it Hummer Hedge for obvious reasons; it's where the humming birds seem to hang out when they make their warm weather pilgrimage to Riverwood. The old apple tree behind it does bear apples which the deer like to eat. Occasionally, we even see them there, but generally they're pretty darn good at not being spotted.

It seemed very warm; we packed the car by making many trips back and forth without benefit of overcoats. I guess it wasn't so much the air temperature, which was only slightly above freezing, but there was little wind and the sun was doing its job very well indeed.

So, yes, we are home from the cottage. I haven't posted for ten days now, the longest hiatus of my blogging career, for a number of reasons. To wit: after the previous post, we had some rather uninspiring weather — cloud, rain, and freezing rain — followed by five days of company. My SIL and BIL came up for the weekend, and my nephew and his lovely friend joined us until Wednesday. Don't despair of the youth, folks; these are absolutely delightful kids. He played his new guitar for us, and she helped the old folks to figure out some dance steps. You can catch a bit on their blog.

There are two other reasons for not blogging: (i) the slow internet connection was driving me to distraction; (ii) and, the sheer banality of my own blog is boring me silly, so I can only begin to imagine how monstrously fatiguing it must be for dear reader. Sometimes, I want to pack it all in, but ... but what I don't really know. Oh, I'll probably be back with some more pictures shortly, but I have no wise or interesting words these days. None, zip, nada.