winter wonderland

We have had two days of snow, as predicted and hyped up, in our neck of the woods.  I only remember a couple of snowy winters in my childhood but master w has had one every year of his little life.  After a morning at playschool for him, and work for me, we went for a walk down the back lane near home.  We called in at the local allotments where the little park also is, there were lots of big frozen puddles to jump on and crack in a satisfying way, W has also learnt that big frozen puddles are often slippy, and he ended up on his back several times. We saw many things on our walk, an egg was the most unexpectd item, but we also befriended a black cat, who followed us for a while and w was most concerned it didn't slip over on the ice.  Two lovely skittish horses came over to say hello, and most excitingly we saw a barn owl out hunting in the snow. (You can just about see it in the above shot, its a white shape in the centre above the green fence posts- honestly).  You can almost guarantee that you will see this beautiful bird hunting over the marshes when you go down this lane, but it always gives me a thrill, and it flew so close to us today with a small something in its beak that even W saw it, he was more interested in the cat though!