JANUARY SNOW IN STRATHPEFFER

 As always all the seasons of the year are a surprise especially more recently

with the insidious formal creeping of global warming.

Mid January I was over in Strathpeffer, later joined my friend, Lesley.

Unfortunately our visit was untimely with the arrival of snow 

- and lots of it over a period of several days. 

Here are a few photographs to illustrate on what scale 'the white stuff' descended!!

Can you believe that we saw this Clematis flower on a cold frosty walk around 

Strrathpeffer Station the day before?

The following day it came down in earnest whilst over in Inverness on 16th;  it snowed for 6 hours!

Below is Lesley initially enjoying the novelty!!

The next day I was out and about with my phone 'capturing' special moments!

The photo below was actually taken from the kitchen window at The Bakery;

Brrrr, it makes me feel cold just looking at it!

Unfortunately our plans to travel back to Skye the following day faded fast

as the snow continued to fall!   

We were marooned there until 20th which was both frustrating but quite enjoyable.

As the snow continued to fall my phone and I became great friends... :)

Above is the view from the back door of 'The Old Bakery.'

The snow was c. 10/11" deep but the effect was really quite stunning!

A walk further down away from the village gave me this wonderful vision

of snow encrusted natural and man made surfaces.

Above the Strathpeffer shops with snow encrusted vehicles outside!

Amazingly most of the shops were still open too.....

A little later .. (actually about 1030 one evening) I took off again with my phone!

The village streetlights enabled me to 'capture' these temporarily snow drenched views....

How beautiful were the trees and hedges sparkling in their snow coatings -

courtesy of the old Victorian streetlights.  Really quite magical and SO quiet!

...... I was the only nutter going for a walk at that time of night

but it was certainly worth it despite the sub zero temperatures and my soggy, leaking shoes!!

Below, any Cromartie House residents just happening to look out of their windows

would have had a fabulous view of the snowy surroundings in the lamplight.

But perhaps my favourite photograph is this one below.

It was taken the following day and the view is simply a snow covered garden

seen over the top of an ornamental wrought iron gate.  A breathtaking view.......

Oh, the joys of Mother Nature and global warming eh?   :)

Back soon .....