Time spent outside...

... is never wasted time, goes the saying. This small crop of pictures result from a hastily organized walk in the middle of January during a brief freak warmth blip, sending us up somewhere above 15 degrees for the day.

Not only did we get to stretch our legs and enjoy the warmth and sunlight, we also got to witness a magical phenomenom, iridescent clouds! As far as I can tell / guess, it is clear that iridescent clouds are thin, high up, and composed of ice crystals of similar size (and that size is likely pretty small). All the websites I checked put the optical effect down to 'diffraction', which isn't very helpful. I would love more detail, especially seeing as the colour of the clouds appears connected to their thickness, which looks more like a scattering effect to me. But whatever their cause, they were absolutely magical and very persistent, hanging in the sky for a good few hours during our leisurely stroll.

On the walk we got peckish and stopped into yet another tiny Heuriger up in the hills that we didn't know was there, grabbing some tasty bread, ham and cheese to fortify us while sipping fresh grape juice. Not bad for a hike organized an hour or two before! Click the link for more GLOW CLOUD GOODNESS.

Bis bald,

Der Tom

Christmas in Buckinghamshire

For Christmas this year I decided I would actually spend a proper amount of time in the county of my birth, Buckinghamshire. As the years go by it gets more and more difficult to wrangle together all the old friends one would like, but luckily my family are still easy to locate! Most of this set of photos are from a stroll taken in the indeterminate gap between Christmas and New Year, with a cameo appearance from a walk to a pub designed to lure my old scouting friends out of the woodwork.

The walk took place about 10 minutes drive from the family home, on an afternoon blessed with the most magical of winter weather types, bright sunshine! I love cold, blue-sky winter days. The sun in the UK is even lower to the horizon than in Austria, meaning that the time of slanting, yellow sun is extended for most of the afternoon, painting the landscape and the sky in warm colours. In the shadows the grass retains an almost bluish green, sometimes dusted with a thin layer of frost, and as the afternoon wears on, hints of purple become more prominent in the clouds. One benefit of hanging out in the chilterns so rarely is that now when I return I can appreciate the details of the landscape, rahter than treating it as a default and unremarkable backdrop!

As it was a very short walk, there's a lot more photos than I have words to waffle about it, so do please click through to the gallery! And for the very small number of people who aren't family and read this blog, here's a link to the location in the Chilterns, the small hamlet of Great Hampden.

bis bald,
der Tom