Playtime

So anyway, after removing the 8 inch layer of windslab from off the hedge (actually the wife did this by clatterring it with a snow shovel) and after chucking snowdrifts at the dog in the front garden, and after lunch and a snooze (its a hard life) – I decided to implement my plan to try to go to get some pictures of a snowy sunset over Crook.

Superdawg receives a direct hit.

The results were a bit disappointing. The sky was almost completely cloudless in the direction of the setting sun, but there were pink towers of dangerously fluffy stuff running along the coast.

Off -piste

But we enjoyed the walk up to the top of the hill and over to Deerness Valley. We followed the Deerness Valley walk as the daylight faded and was replaced by a kind of bluey pink night.

Pink coastal clouds

All around the surrounding hills were small sledging parties – kids having noisy fun on the big hills - – just the thing to keep the little buggers off the street corners.

Distant sledging party

And there was one solitary skier gearing up for the 2km, 150 metre descent into Hope Street. I bet that was fun.

Almost sunset

The walking was a bit easier today – provided you walk in the foot-wide trodden lane through the snowdrifts where it had been beaten down by many feet. Off-piste it was as soft as bu…. it was quite soft – a bit like walking in very cold sand dunes.

Sunset over Crook from the memorial seat at Stanley Crook

My beard froze. Bruno bounced around again. In fact he bounced for five miles. Its very beautiful just now, I have to say.

Crook Illuminations

Short doggy video below. No map today, couldn’t be arsed. We did five miles, though and 500 feet of uphill and we retraced our steps almost exactly.