Walking In A Winter Wonderland

“Nicola hasn't seen snow in person since before she started walking for weight-loss, so never had the chance to indulge in splurging social media with snowy nature pictures! UNTIL NOW!!!  Mwahahahahah!

And yes, she seems to enjoy taking photos of fallen trees that have been artfully striped in snow by Mother Nature!"

It snowed! It really snowed! My inner seven-year-old was squeeeing with delight! That it actually hadn't snowed very much at all didn't stop me haring it up the hill towards Magus Muir (or as much as one can hare it up a hill through slidey, beginning-to-melt slush-snow, wearing very stout, very heavy boots) and stopping near the entrance to turn around and take a photo of the village in Winter Wonderland mode. 

Yes, yes, I've seen it whiter after a mid-Summer hailstorm.

Thankfully, the woods had kept more of their share of the white stuff, and little girl mode kicked in again!

Every time I walk to Magus Muir I take a photo of this fallen tree. It's one of the first things that catches my eye fifty metres or so into the woods, and I find the juxtaposition of its final resting place against the upright living trees incredibly beautiful. I'd never been successful in transferring that beauty to 2D until this dusting of snow was just enough to let my camera catch the criss-crossing of the boughs.

My timing couldn't have been more perfect - the rising sun (yes, 10am, but this is Scotland in Winter!) had just made it above the tree line but hadn't yet touched the snow in the hush of the woods, so what had fallen during the night was still lying undisturbed.

And lots of fallen trees that I'm pretty sure hadn't just fallen overnight with the snow. Fallen trees EVERYWHERE!! Not that any of them have actually ruined the lives of those growing up amongst, or indeed through, them!

It must be said that although many of the trees are quite young - the majority seem to be silver birch perhaps up to 50 years old - it's an ancient woods...

... which becomes obvious when looking up to see stark branches of old, old trees reaching up towards the bright sky, the tips of which gilded by the rising sun!

I do prefer this time of year to any other. No, I lie. I prefer Autumn, Winter and early Spring to the over-abundance of Summer. You can't see the woods for the trees in Summer!

Oh, how I make myself laugh. 

I loved how the stripes of snow added an extra dimension to the tangle of undergrowth that made my detail-loving self exceedingly happy! You can imagine how these woods would look if painted by Klimt or a young Van Gogh! 

And I couldn't pass my favourite old lady of the woods without a visit, to see her reaching out towards the rising sun. Just don't tell my other favourite near Kemback that there's a rival for my arboreal affections!

Not that they'd care one way or the other, but my imagination's on a roll now...

I'd show you this photo (above) in the original colour, but, if you remember from posts past, the camera on my phone does have a tendency to add more hues to white than actually seen with the human eye. Not that it's so fancy-schmancy that it has infra-red or whatever technology is needed to see more than what's there, it just has a dodgy lens that adds pink to the middle, and green to the edge of any photo that is overly-blessed in the white department. A pastel shot of the woods might be lovely for an 1980's themed post (mmm-mmm those ‘Whiter Shades Of Pale' I believe they were called by Dulux*...?) but an arty-farty photo attempt late 2010's? Nope.

Pastels and greys aside, the light was quite beautiful in itself:

creating beautiful yellows and oranges beside the blues of the shadowed snow.

Or beautiful pinks (greys) against the greens (greys) of the shadowed... nope. One day I really am going to get a decent camera!



* Mwahahahah!