Deck the trees.

Following an unfortunate incident whereby somebody accidentally spilled neat dark navy rum all over their laptop keyboard, and then foolishly tried to repair said keyboard themselves, I have been offline for a couple of days whilst a professional laptopsmith forged a new interface device for me, possibly using some sort of high tech anvil.

Whilst he weaved his art, which I am beginning to suspect might be something more akin to voodoo than real work, I had some of that rarest of commodities, a bit of spare time.Rather than fix the car aerial or put up the Billy Bookcase that's been nestling in it's IKEA box for months, I took the opportunity to meander around the winter wonderland that my bit of Eng-er-land has become recently. It wasn't snow that blanketted the countryside round where I was walking, but a rather impressive frosting - of frost:


In this country, we often lament our lack of proper seasonal weather, and fondly recall snowdrifts up to the eaves and days spent burrowing like be-mittened worms in snow that wouldn't melt until the spring, when it would dissapear conveniently without any slush, allowing freshly opened flowers to pop up in a kaleidoscopic display just for our benefit, and newly shampooed, conditioned and blowdried rabbits to gambol playfully amidst gently waving fronds of grass.

There may be a touch of the old rose-tinted crash-helmet visor going on there, but you get my drift (aha). The weather was so much more . . . reliable, back when I was a nipper. Winter - cold and snowy. Spring - green with scattered showers. Summer - hot and sunny. Autumn - Windy and fresh.

So it was a pleasant surprise to come across woodlands and trees which were positively bedecked in crystals. The trees looked like they'd decided to forsake chlorophyll this year, green being so passe for the modern rural scene, and white the new colour no self-respecting tree should be seen without:


All rather marvellous. Reminds me that beauty really is where you find it.