Winter reality check

It's 2pm and the temperature, or at least from the digital thermometer reading on the outside windowsill, has reached the balmy heights of 0.3C after an overnight low of -7.3C. Brrrrr! It's rare to stay below freezing during the day here but with freezing north east winds adding a horrible wind chill, even the sun is not defrosting a single thing out there. I've learnt that my expensive ski long johns are a load of rubbish so I may as well stick to cheap as they aren't any colder!

I've been out twice and done my bird duties (this includes the wild birds), and changed their water once already as it had frozen over only a few hours after I'd done them at 8.30 this morning. I am nuts though as I took some photos which nearly gave my poor hands hypothermia. I'm not sure that my mimosa or PSB are going to survive this cold plus wind, and it's not going to let up for about a week by the looks of things, so I wanted a pic of the mimosa whilst it had a few flowers open. Just in case.

Lake first thing this morning

PSB looking very sorry for itself!

The bleak view northeast, now nearly all the trees
around these fields have been cut down

My Mimosa, just coming into flower

Mimosa + blue sky + sunshine usually makes me think
of warmth, even though this variety
does normally flower in winter or early spring!

Even the snowdrops are collapsed from the cold;
however they at least will perk up as soon as it warms up

My outside duties are done - it's the OH's turn now. I'm staying in :-)