Sartorially shite

I hoike up my jeans to half-mast - rolling them neatly to reveal pale winter-hairy legs, blue socks and Birkenstocks and pull on my wellies. I zip up a quilted body warmer and pull a fleeced hoody* on over the top. Gloves. Mustn't forget the gloves. (Knitted, plastic-palmed, gardening - for the use of.) Somewhere beneath all this my vest is well tucked in. My best-ever gardening hat (with it's 'nothing is ordinary' badge firmly afixed) is yanked firmly down over my ears, add a slick of lip-salve and I'm dressed and ready for action. We'll ignore the whiff of je ne sais quois - the miasma of compost, poultry and wood smoke which walks alongside me. Is there a hint of Worzel Gummidge in my appearance? Perhaps. Thank goodness it's dark you might think.

Sadly this passes for day wear too.....I hear fashion correspondents the world over weep as their advice re accessories and shoeboots, silk, cashmere and must-have hand-wrought tweed apparently falls on deaf ears. But now I am going to walk a dog. In the dark.

Out on the frosty lane and under the stars - it is one fantastic night. Wilson, the most handsome bull terrier in the small mountain kingdom of Trelystan, leads the way up the lane - his nose picking up bright night smells. What information is there to be read on the breeze, in a stone or blade of grass?

...Let's turn off the torch for a while and let the stars do the lighting - how I wish I knew their names. The Milky Way is, tonight, a creamy swoosh across the sky. I wonder, as I always do, what other lives and loves are out there in that vastness. At the top of the lane and across the valley we see the scattered and earthly lights of Montgomery and to the east Minsterley and Snailbeach. We stop, lean on a gate to take in the night. We see no one and (I think) no one sees us. (Considering my costume this may be a Good Thing.)

Our own house lights glow warmly beneath us. We strode up the hill with confidence, our feet crunching on the icy gravel, but make our way down again with caution; two days of frost have left a surface like glass. My multi-layered look has kept me warm - and I'm reassured that should I fall I will be well padded too. Wilson tows me home; he goes to his stinky dog bed and I come here to tell you the news as it happens: freezin' keen, ice underfoot, clear starry sky and the prospect of sunny intervals tomorrow.

Meanwhile some fog and frost pictures from this weekend:
This little patch of the Long Mountain was like the promised land on Saturday - bathed in sunshine - while fog hangs in the valley below.
The frosted landscape this morning as seen from our field.

Boxing hares in Saturday's fog.

and erm...frosty things**:

*Said fleece first saw light of day in the early nineties when it was bought as a bit of edgy street wear for one son or another - in retrospect what a good buy it has been. An early hoodie - now Vintage - it's a real bit of wash and go.

** ...not sure about the 'snowflakes'...