Happy New Year.

Well all we can hope for is that 2023 improves from last year . Both in easing of the pandemic, cost of (sort of) living, industrial disputes and up here ,at the moment, the weather.

1st.

With regard the weather we woke up this morning to four inches of snow and minus six temperature, as you will see below.

My poor old car, when I eventually got the car back home a couple of days ago, I couldn’t get it in the garage so had to leave it out, unaware we were getting so much snow, hence this is the result.

Just to prove we had four inches here it is stacked on my wing mirror.

Looks stunning but only the four wheel drive and snow tyres will get you up the hill.

No collection of recycled material for a while me thinks. These are not all my bins the whole glen has to use one central spot for the recycle and household waste.

This grand old oak tree looks so wonderful with snow on it.

2nd

The sun has risen on this beautiful clear day, with present temperature at minus nine C, so we have still got all our snow. The first two shots are of the mountains to the right of our house as viewed from our bedroom and the last are the mountains to our left. Log burner will be on the minute I am dressed. brrrrr.

13th.

For the first time in a few days we have had some sun instead of continuous rain. So went up the hill to see the Munro’s, unfortunately the low cloud was still covering some of the tops but took a few shots anyway.

The first shot you can see the cloud , in the second the slightly lower hills were below the cloud cover, but you can see from these the snow level at the moment and the cover. It is slowly melting and the rivers have really been in spate.

The melt continues on the lochs as well, as you can see from the first shot beneath the trees no ice, in the second a small bay by the bank is ice free the remainder (a bit whiter) is still frozen.

When walking a ridge in the field I spooked six Roe Deer, by the time I got my camera up I just captured ones backside, can you spot it?

This looks like my neighbours back garden (sorry Rod) but is in fact another “mole city” up on the Glen Fender meadows.

Went off to Pitlochry after above photo’s and called into Loch Dunmore, where this huge Pine tree has fallen into the water onto the ice. As this is a very productive place to fish we are hoping Forestry and Land Scotland can get it cleared before the start of the season.

16th.

Not the greatest of shots, but this is a sight you do not see very often. About a mile away from home on the opposite side of the glen from us was this herd of Red Deer stags, I zoomed in on my screen and though very blurred I counted roughly one hundred and eighty deer, which is a fair old herd. With binoculars I could see they were all stags which is normal this time of the year as they congregate after the rut, while the females go off by themselves before they have their young. The reason the herd is this side of the hill is because with the sun being so low this time of the year the other side does not see any of it, so is frozen most of the time , where this side does get some sun and therefore it is easier to get at the ground below the snow. Does not matter how many times I see this sight it still excites me.