The winter stroll

I use the definite article - 'The' winter stroll because this is it - there wasn't an earlier stroll and there most probably won't be a later one.  There's been no winter this year!  I don't know how to describe my feelings... I felt compelled to go out and get a whole season worth of photos in just one afternoon.  That's impossible, of course - the sun is already too high in the sky and the shadows are... well they don't match what I see in January.

This is my favourite spot down in the bottom of Vale Cemetery; the upper pond.  The construction equipment is gone and the snow is covering up the recent earth-moving.  The city's busiest street is in front of us, up the hill a few thousand feet away but not a whisper of that traffic reaches down into this quiet little valley.  The crows are active today; wheeling and jousting with the blue jays, they make the only sound except for the trickle of melting snow and the crunching of my boots in the snow.  These geese are migratory; they weren't here a few weeks ago.  So they have already begun moving back south for their summer family time.

The water is only a few feet deep here, but against the white snow it seems as deep as an ancient Scottish loch, and with the quiet all around me, I can indulge my fantasy of travel, imagining myself in a Highland valley waiting for the sun to wheel overhead and bring news of the next season.

F Number	8.0
Lens ID	LUMIX G VARIO 14-45mm F3.5-5.6
Focal Length	45.0 mm (35 mm equivalent: 90.0 mm)
Exposure Time	1/125
Exposure Program	Manual
ISO	100
Exposure Compensation	0
Flash	Off, Did not fire