Sunny.

After a clear starry night the day began with a crisp frost and continued sunny and cold. By late afternoon all was gloomy at the back of the house which was in shade but the front felt lovely and warm, at least on the inside.

With no major projects on the go I pottered around, sorting out paperwork, unpicking another letter from Peter's polo top and knitting a bit more of my mitten. For supper I  made a big pot of cabbage soup which also contains onions, tomatoes and chopped up smoked sausage for extra taste. Served with crumbled ('cos it's been in the freezer) strong cheddar cheese it's a real winter warmer. Good if you've been working outside or as in my case just emptying out the water from the stone trough. One other job today was to back up my photos as it hasn't been done for a long time. I plugged in my external hard drive and …….. nothing. I did the usual checks ie jiggling both ends and trying a different USB port but not a thing. However when Peter gave me a new USB lead to try it sprang into life. Whole months' worth of photos simply flew across. I'm now wondering if the old lead, which did look a bit rusty at one end, had been slowing the process down.

The sunset tonight was very pretty. If you imagine the colours of the photos below greatly intensified ie glowing orange and deep pink they will give an idea of this evening's sky.