Riming [sic] in the bushes!

After yet another overnight hard frost, this morning we saw something that we've not seen too many times before. Many of the hedges were covered in fairly spectacular and very icy spiders' webs. (Whilst I've always known that spiders like hedges, I never realised there were quite so many of them.) And on the news there were pictures of cars covered in what looked like an inch of snow.

The weather lady on at lunchtime was at pains to point out that she hadn't got the forecast wrong and that the white, frozen deposits were not snow at all but rather were something called "rime". Apparently "riming" doesn't often happen in the UK. Even more bizarrely, rime is also known as "hoar frost" - I'm not making this up!

All this cold weather - it's not even got up to 1°C today - has meant I've managed to enjoy some very pretty scenery while I've been out on my bike. It's a good motivator as if we stop for too long we begin to suffer hypothermia (on top of the cramp and exhaustion).

I'm beginning to get the hang of rapid puncture repairs, a very necessary skill as hands only remain useable for a few minutes out of their gloves. Anyone who's watched Ice Road Truckers will know what I mean. Perhaps I'll have to investigate some run-flats for the winter excursions. :-)