Brrrrr!

 

This is my home town Stirling today :-) Steeped in history and has stunning scenery.  This a photograph of the castle by local photographer Jon Crisp.  I live on the other side of the castle.  I get free entry as I live within the old castle boundary.  What you can't tell from this picture is that the castle sits high on an extinct volcano.  The side I see doesn't have housing as it's just rock.  It's lit up at night and looks spectacular.

 

As you can see from the hills we've had some snow.  All perfectly manageable despite the hyped up news reports that are all doom and gloom about this cold snap.  It's January in Scotland!! What do you expect???  My road has been well gritted so I can drive in and out easily. People dress accordingly and there's no panic about running out of food.  Maybe I'm turning into a grumpy old woman but I'm getting more and more annoyed at non stories in the news!

As you can see from all the paw prints the dogs are happy enough running around in the snow!  They both love chasing snowballs.

 

Not sure the chickens are thrilled about their first snow though!  I gave them some porridge this morning for the first time.  They weren't quite sure at first then they went mental!! That's Merida with it all over her beak!

 

They won't walk on the snow, preferring to stick to the area under the tarpaulin. As a result it's becoming rather muddy and smelly.  When the weather dries up a bit I need to put more stones back down to help with drainage.

 

The down side of this snowy weather is that our school playground is a hazard and the kids don't get out to play on it.  However, I've been taking mine out for a more controlled daily kilometre walk, noticing wintry things along the way.  I did laugh the other day when I asked them if they knew the name of the mountain they could see in the distance.  One of my brighter(!) ones said it was Mount Everest!! It's actually Ben Lomond :-)

 

I'm very lucky to live and work in such beautiful Scottish countryside :-)