After a week of damp and cloudy, the weather reached a wintry climax with flurries of snow and a good dumping up on the hills. The ground was wet and boggy for a few days and the streams gushed noisily.
Nothing says winter quite like snow. Despite being cold and inconvenient it's also magical and exciting. We are warm by the fire and watching the snow drifting down outside. The cat is not too sure. This is his first snow experience and he seems a bit nervous about the white stuff falling out of the sky.
The first serious winter storm hit with a snowy wet blast and dumped over 75mm in 24 hours. This is exactly the kind of situation the extensive network of swales was built to handle. During the day I made numerous excursions out into the cold to assess and marvel at how the water was collected, channelled and redirected, distributed and absorbed.