More cold

A few snaps from our walk on Christmas eve. We'd been stuck indoors for a good few days and the children were getting particularly restless, so we just popped along to Alexandra park, (at the end of our street) to burn off a bit of energy. I only took a few photos as my battery was running low and I almost didn't bother as a result. I'm really pleased I did now as all the snow has melted away last night!

One of these three pictures is my first ever truly photoshopped photo where I took part of one shot of a scene and put it onto another shot of the same scene to make it just that little bit better. Can you tell which?

Quack! Honk! Squawk!

Merry Christmas to you all!! I hope you had a good one.

As a family we usually go on a Boxing Day walk, however we were all a little too tired and too cold yesterday to bother to get out of our nice warm room, so we watched numerous family DVDs instead. However, this afternoon we decided to brave the Elements and go our for a walk to Chorlton Water park. The lake was totally frozen over and there were many many hungry and noisy birds....

Run Mary Run!

Dressing up as Mary and running round in circles in the church hall seemed like a great way to enjoy the toddler group Christmas party!

Festive festive festive!

The last day of term today, holidays start tomorrow, snow is falling, decorations are up, most of the presents are wrapped..... I'm feeling festive!

Coffee Gremlin

Meet my coffee gremlin. He is called such because he is made from instant coffee. Earlier today Nathan handed me a little tupperware tub which used to contain instant coffee granules. Clearly, at some point a little bit of moisture got in there and then it was left in the camping cupboard. Over the months the coffee grains merged together and became a putty like substance. And this is the end result. My hands smell of coffee.

Frozen drips

Another macros lens adventure in the garden.... I found a nice little icicle at the back of our house.

Being so close for just a few minutes meant that the icicle began to melt, thus creating another photo opportunity!

Wait for it....

Wait for it....

There! (That took me about 20 shots to get!)

There's a thief in the garden!

This week we put up a fancy bird feeder that we were given as a house warming gift. We'd had another bird table up since we moved in but the only visitors it'd had were a couple of fat wood pigeons and the odd squirrel. After a day or two this new feeder has seen some finches, blue tits, a robin, the fat pigeons and a number of very greedy squirrels!

This squirrel (and possibly one other) ate not only half the ball of peanuts but two whole fat balls and every single nut on the feeding plates, and then came back for more! I think we may need to grease part of the pole so that the birds actually have chance to get something. I do wonder if I had to climb and swing from a height to get my dinner if I'd be ever so slightly fitter....?

Spinning!

One of the funfair rides at the Festival of Lights in Huddersfield.

Ice faeries

An ice fairy (as my children call them) on our car window, about a centimetre in diameter. A handheld shot taken with my macro lens. I should probably use a tripod to stop the whole swaying in and out of focus thing....

Frost on our garden gate.

Tiny little leaves on our berry bush. With these three photos I was wanting to grasp each tiny ice crystal around the leaves and berries and use the red to contrast the white. I love *crisp* colour, it feels like an apple.

I shall try and go out and do a real photo shoot tomorrow, and actually set up my camera and tripod and spend some time on this rather than just taking a few shots on my way in from the car to the house!