This shot was taken as I walked through Chiswick this evening, at the start of what turned out to be a really nice sunset. Apart from having to explain the “Red sky at night” concept to my American colleague Milly a few weeks ago, sunsets always remind me of these wise words from my friend Ali:

“Red sky at night, shepherd’s delight
Red sky at morning, shepherd’s warning
Minced lamb and mashed potato, shepherd’s pie”

I think we can all take something from that, can’t we? :D

I headed down to the trendy shopping street in Chiswick today (I’m assuming there’s not many of these streets, or I’d have found them by now!) to buy a baby gift for some friends of ours who have recently had a baby. As you’d expect on a street of trendy boutiques, there were lots of very pricey-looking shops to choose from, but this seemed like the best bet for baby thins (judging by the name!).

I ended up getting some very nice gifts in their sale (I won’t reveal what, in case they are reading this!) but was pretty impressively shocked to see some “Baby Dior” booties on sale in this shop – for NINETY POUNDS! Considering toddlers apparently change shoe size every six weeks, that’s quite an impressive habit to have to keep… I think I’ll stick with Mothercare!

Well, that was a total disappointment, wasn’t it? 20cm of snow, they said – haven’t they learned not to bother predicting these sort of things by now? The only snow I got today was a light dusting of sleet while I was driving down the M4. The big pile in the picture above is what is left over from the last batch, sat outside my brother’s house. It’s the cleanest pile of snow left, with the rest of the piles I’ve seen being a very dirty grey, or in the case of the Tesco carpark, totally black! I resisted the temptation to jump in it, mainly due to my unsuitable shoes….

I was tempted to use *this* photo for today’s entry – but having watched the Springwatch “Snow Watch” special earlier, I decided that this guy feeding the birds on Turnham Green was a nicer summary of the day. A day when we suddenly got an extra does of snow, just when we thought it was all melting. The snow itself didn’t last long – even as I sit here this evening, I can hear it all drip-drip-dripping outside our window. It was lovely while it lasted though.

I suspect this’ll be the last snow-based photo of the year – at least until next winter. The snow in Reading is still around (though thawing fast) and the snow in Chiswick (where this photo was taken) was all but gone this morning. Only a light dusting of icing sugar remained, though it was enough for whatever animal this was to leave some nice tracks.

What else could it possibly be today, but a photo taken on my way in to work – more specifically, the long walk from where I park my car to the Tamar offices. On the day when about half of the UK are making their way slowly back to work after a nice long Christmas, I actually felt a lot less depressed than I usually do on this day, as I didn’t really take much time off over the festive season.

With January looking like it’s going to be just as busy, I’m hoping that the icy conditions we’re due in the next few weeks will spread the festive feeling a little bit longer. Either that or produce a few more snow days!