Third Sunday in Advent...

... and still hardly any Christmas cards done. It seems to be only really the British who impose this particular form of expensive self-torture on themselves, but we have to do it or we assume our friends and relations don't like us anymore or have died.

However, despite waking late having pulled the Velux blinds down last night to conserve heat ( there was even frost on the inside of the window behind the blinds this morning ), 6 a.m. starts having rather gone by the board of late, I decided I preferred to set off for a walk in the beautiful frosty sunlight than embark on them. The previous night Tom had embarked on a beef-stock-making project, involving marrow bones, celery, leeks, carrots etc and all of our largest pans, and generating so much steam that, coldest night of the year notwithstanding, we were obliged to have the kitchen window open. I left him to continue with this endeavour, which he is only now concluding, the latest episode in the drama being dropping the largest cast iron pan in a sink of soapy water and the consequent tsunami soaking him and probably half the kitchen, but at least he is doing the washing-up himself.

So off I went, passing Victor's frosted leeks on the way,

the sun was beginning to melt some of the frost, but in the corners where it hadn't reached, the precious crystals remained, on grasses

and leaf litter and ivy leaves.

In the harrowed field by the stone cross, the pools of standing water I had long been contriving to make into something interesting have at last, by way of the freeze, yielded some results .

One must admire the humble but pernicious dock,

despite ploughing and herbicide, the harrow and the frost, it stands up proud and pretty at last in etiolated translucency amidst the ice.

The road goes on, and the sun is warming,

the leafless and mistletoe-balled trees show through to blue gradations of winter landscape and frost-crisped fields, but the open field are frequented by hunters on Sundays and anyway Molly has balls of muddied ice collecting between her toes, and I find my mind keeps returning to the beef gravy I know is intensifying and reducing on in the kitchen, and fantasies of it with mince and buttered carrots and mashed potato and parsnips.

There are many things I'd really rather do than assemble and write Christmas cards this afternoon, not least catching up with everybody's blogs. Then I've a strong fancy to curl up with a warm lapdog and watch 'The Seventh Seal', or peruse some of the deliciously inviting photography books I had for my birthday. But I'll feel better when they're done, and with a joint effort, we'll get through them fairly easily really. And today is Radio 3's 'Christmas around Europe', which will provide a festive backdrop. We've just had Finland, can't say I'm too impressed with Estonia so far...

The cards await.