I didn’t go outside much this week because the conditions were far too icy, but did put my Yaktax onto my wellies (think: snow chains for shoes) to put food out for the birds. We get robins, sparrows, green finches, chaff finches, tiny coal and blue tits, plus starlings and magpies. The latter we also call flying penguins because of something the in-house art critic once said.
I watch them from my studio, the kitchen, our bedroom, and one day will put pencil to paper and make a drawing of their flitting about rather than drawing it in my head only. Swoop in onto the top, jump down onto the seed tray, hop and hold on the fatball feeder, everyone scattering as some danger is perceived. A drawing about movement and interaction. Perhaps different colours for the various species.

To get to the birdfeeder I had to step over some pebbles that edge the grass, covered in a layer of frost. Without the greens in the grass, it looks quite different, more like tinsel.

I hadn’t really make a nest in a wire basket to keep some of the smaller pebbles warm.

This is frost on the back of an outdoor chair, reminding me of barbed wire spikes on the top of a wall. Look also at the spiky shadow on the table cloth.