We took a walk around a bit of the park on Saturday. Unlike last January when there was all sorts going on on the frozen pond the place was almost deserted apart from the seagulls and geese.

Even the play park, normally well used, was empty.

Here’s where the only evidence of free water was in January.

No convocation of birds this time. They were all (well some of them) up the other end.

Beveridge Park’s two resident swans are in this one. There has been a third swan on the pond for most of this year; we don’t know whether it’s the offspring of these two or a blow-in.

This is the fountain I pictured all iced up last year. It’s not quite so picturesque at the moment but from this angle you can see the building that used to be a park keeper’s house in the background.

We were back up in Dundee on Friday taking more stuff to the flat our son has bought.

The weather was still interesting.

Above is the block of flats where his flat is, below is the entrance road.

That’s where the van got stuck on Tuesday. Here you can still see the ridges in the snow/ice:-

This is where you would normally park:-

The access road is lined with tenements. There were some great icicles hanging from one of them but the picture didn’t come out too well.

The main roads were fine, though.

I’ve remarked before that it’s not often we get a lot of snow at Son of the Rock Towers but like the rest of the country we haven’t escaped this winter’s early deluge.

Despite that we had a visitor. Well, our garden did.

Here it is, showing as a backdrop the first (relatively trivial in hindsight) snowfall.

I don’t recall ever seeing a snipe before but we looked it up in our Wildlife of the British Isles book and it was exactly like the illustration there.

Snipe are wading birds. We’re only a couple of hundred yards as the snipe flies from the sea here so perhaps it’s not surprising to see one. It was grubbing about in the snow – for food I suppose, maybe there’s not much down on the shoreline at the moment – but it had measly pickings. It was there just long enough for me to rush upstairs for the camera and to get the one pic.

Yesterday we moved some of our elder son’s stuff to his new flat in Dundee. We just moved son no. 2 out of Dundee in the summer and now the other moves there. Isn’t life strange?

I was driving the van. That was fun. We couldn’t get near the ground entrance to the flat so were humphing stuff through twenty metres of snow. Then the van was reluctant to come out of the iced up snow and had to be dug out. South of Dundee on the A92 on the way home it began snowing again. I could barely see where the road was.

Still, not a scratch on the van despite a few slips and slides at roundabouts – including one 165 degree skid on exiting one! The snow/slush caused that but also saved me from damaging the van as it gave a soft place for the skid to end up. We ended up facing completely the wrong way blocking that exit. It must have been entertaining viewing for the folks in the vehicle waiting to get onto the roundabout at the previous exit. I just drove back onto the roundabout and went all the way round. More carefully.

Eight or so more inches fell overnight so it was a bit tricky this morning getting the van out of where it had been parked in front of the house but once on the road I got it back to the hire place OK. The main routes are ploughed and gritted but not our street. We also had no bin collection today. Next one’s in a fortnight!

Motoring to the game yesterday I couldn’t help notice that the Ochil Hills had snow on them.

First snow of the season. And it’s still October. The clocks haven’t even changed.

Even if it had disappeared by full time (much like any hope of staving off relegation) another long hard winter may be on the way.

The past couple of weeks car windows in my street have had condensation on them when I left the house. This doesn’t usually happen in August.

This morning (1st Sep) bang on cue the first mist of the autumn was hanging around. I’d have called it a haar but it persisted all the way to Dunfermline; haar usually only lies close to the coast and Dunfermline tends to avoid it.

Whether this presages another bad winter like last year I don’t know. I do know it’s not usually so cold so early.

The tree at work I have mentioned before is showing its autumn colours again. Mind you, it wasn’t looking too green even in June.

Winter woollies, then.

Well those who were hankering after it have certainly had their winter shutdown.

For clubs like Dumbarton it’s been like a close season this past month – only without the friendly matches.

Fingers crossed for tomorrow.

I came downstairs yesterday morning to a sparser covering of snow in the garden and streets almost clear of snow and ice.

Despite some patches of overlying water that had not been there on Saturday the pond in the park was still almost compleletely frozen, though, and skaters and hockeyists were still plying their skills.

This may not be true for much longer.

Well, a snow that lies more than a day or so is a rarity in these parts. It’s getting on for three weeks now and a further covering arrived this morning.

I finally got to the park today, to see the goings on.

A nice tribute to the human spirit that so much activity was taking place and fun being had in the face of what others were moaning about.

It wasn’t worth the council’s time erecting this sign.

Not quite a bonspiel but the local curlers were enjoying themselves.

An ice hockey game with a goal cobbled together from bits of wood.

The last saloon in town. The inlet to the pond has kept enough water moving to stop it freezing here. The gulls were making a nuisance of themselves.

There were lots of skaters about too. All the revellers had had to brush the snow off the ice to get started.

This is the fountain further into the park. There was still water flowing from it despite the cold.

Those of you who know me know my birthday lies about as close to Christmas as you can get.

This means I get presents two days in a row. A downside is that I then have to wait a whole year before getting any more.

It also makes things difficult for my family in getting me cards and such for my birthday. In particular, the shops seem not to stock birthday cards in December.

I mentioned last year I have a collection of tins. I got two new ones this year; both nice examples – with biscuits in them!

My eldest son was stuck for a birthday present. The good lady suggested The American Civil War documentary series from a few years back on DVD. He thought it wouldn’t be very festive but the good lady assured him I’d be delighted. I was. (I did videotape it when it was first on; but the DVD is more durable.)

Since it hasn’t been the weather for gallivanting – unusually heavy snowfall and unusually persistent frost and ice for Kirkcaldy – a lot of my holiday has been spent (re)watching the series. Review will follow.

Back to work tomorrow. Ridiculously early in the year. I’ve never before been back on a January banks’ holiday.

I woke up this morning to that rarity in Kirkcaldy, a heavy snowfall. This is only the third or so time in over twenty years here that there’s been enough to build a snowman. There must have been at least three inches. Very festive. Thank goodness I’m on holiday.
When I ventured out it wasn’t as cold as yesterday, though.
I’m hoping the game is off on Saturday as I’d like to watch David Tennant’s Hamlet and it starts at 5.05.