More frosts

A couple more photographs in the frosts we've been having recently. I especially like the way Rosemary looked like glass, very peculiar. Speaking of which, I was looking out of the window in the very early hours of the morning that I took these and there was no sign of any frost so that must happen in a very short space of time before the sun comes up, or at least on this particular occasion!.

Early rosebush growth forsted over

Berrys in frost

Rosemary frosted

Hot-air Balloons and Frosts

Do hot-air balloons 'fly'? Anyway, the local hot-air balloon rides that set off from York Knavesmires have a flight path overhead, so when the weather conditions are right (Northeasterly winds?) they can often be seen 'flying' overhead.

Also took some time to freeze my fingers taking some shots in the thick (for the UK) frosts we've had in recent weeks; I need to remind myself to wear proper gloves when photo shooting in the cold because fingerless gloves aren't much use after about 10 minutes, beyond that you might as well have used full gloves because frostbite means not being able to feel the shutter button anyway!. I do quite like the quality of light at this time of year, it's very crisp with a nice colour tone to it that the Fuji picks up well.

Heavy Frost 4

Heavy Frost 3

Heavy frost 2

Heavy frost 1

Overhead Hotair Ballon

Zoomed Hotair Ballon flying (?) overhead

For whom the 'Bell' (Cruise) Tolls

Ok, scam alert. Actually, no, let me rephrase that; S.P.A.M. alert.

I don't know why but for some reason our (very) old 'friend' (obviously that word is used very loosely) Bell Cruise has seen fit to have an overdue spasm of activity; in the last couple of days I've had a good number of artists from all over the world emailing me with concerns regarding this acquaintance we've come to know and loath; if you get one yourself, forward it on and forget about it, it's 'spam' and 'scamming' of the lowest order and not worth you time and/or energy to worry about.

This was just a semi urgent message to all the sites new and old visitors that Messrs Bell Cruise in under the influence of sunspots, expect bouts of high activity and interruptions to electronic services as a result.

Keep sending in the mail by the way. Oh speaking of which... if you are sending a message through and want a reply please, please PLEASE, make sure you use a proper valid email address that can be accessed from the 'outside'; I've had a few messages bounced back recently because they use very weird (and thus invalid) addresses based on multi subdomains; info@mail.mail.mail.com. just won't work, info@mail.com will (usually), so keep that in mind. ;o)

It snowed.. sort of..

Well it snowed, not really what I'd call any great amount; more like a dusting than a snow 'fall', but you make the best of what you get. So here are some photos take around 8:00AM as the day was beginning to show some 'light' signs.

Up th'road and under snow

Lain to rest

Covering

Capped

Gathered

Winter Frost [photographs]

Winter lasted about a week this year; well actually three days if I recall correctly, where temperature were low enough for me to have worn extra layer indoors. But that's by the by. I managed to grab the shot below of the frosts that we did have; I've changed the format a little bit so that you can use it as a background image without the flat light grey that was being used on the previous photos, that way you can save it and use it with your background desktop colour showing in the 'blank' bits.

I don't know if you've ever looked closely at frost but it's quite fascinating; the crystalline structure is composed of layers that grow on top of each other ending up in these semi-cuboid structures which give it that 'crispy' appearance; I imagine a spherical structure would make it appear 'softer'. I'll keep an eye out for more frosty mornings.

December Frost