Mega!

I was FB chatting with me old mate Danny the Pirate last night when he asked if I'd seen Uranus yet, which is showing very well this month. Relatively speaking. I've always assumed you'd need a girt big telescope to see this distant planet, but actually all you need for the moment are clear night skies and a set of bog standard 10x binoculars. I have those! It's currently situated very close to Mars, visually not physically obviously, so find Mars and look a little down and to the left. Uranus is the slightly blurry-looking 'star' that doesn't twinkle. It's faint and through binoculars you won't discern any detail. But if you have a telescope you might be able to see that it's a pale bluish disc rather than a point of light. Anyway, it's not every day you get to see a new planet so I was quite pleased to have made the substantial effort of standing in the doorway and looking up. Sadly I utterly failed to find it in the camera. 

It clouded over before midnight and soon started snowing. This morning I was happy to see that it had settled and headed out for a bit of a kick around. Gotta love a bit of snow! 

I don't think I'll ever grow bored of the view up to Beinn Edra

One thing about snow that I really like is you can read it like a story book. Well, sometimes you can. 

Fox tracks. The footprints had iced over inside, so these are already several hours old

Foxes are a rare sight around these parts, I've seen just one in four years, plus a couple of roadkills. There's a fella called Scott the Fox (possibly not his actual surname, I'm not sure) who shoots them to appease the local crofters, because obviously a fox loves nothing more than to eat all the lambs of a springtime, ignoring the multitudes of voles and rabbits that are absolutely everywhere. I followed the tracks for a short way before crossing more signs.

Almost certainly Hooded Crow

These could belong to a Raven, I guess. But they seemed a bit small and Ravens are usually in pairs or more on the ground. I'm going with Hooded Crow, you can see the rocking waddle in it's stride! 

Rabbit tracks - you can see where it sat down before bounding back to cover

This is a male human wearing size 10 slip-proof DeWalt boots

This is a guy walking his dog moments before being run over by a car with a very wide tyre on one side and a normal tyre on the other

Bloody things get everywhere...

And the white stuff is still laying as I type this. Unfortunately for me, I start work again tomorrow. I'll wave to it through the window. Think I'll concentrate on the indoor jobs before tackling the painting that needs doing outside. I plan to get back out next weekend though, stay tuned!

Feeling like I need a decent tune to get my head a bobbing. How do you guys feel about screams? If you don't know Jinjer you're in for a treat!! 

I absolutely adore this song. The drummer has such insane talent and as for Tatiana.... enjoy!