Snow!

When you wake in the morning to this,

after yawning your usual blurred way into the kitchen, only to stop short with a surprised yawp at the ghostly-bluish half-light just beyond the window,

and the powder dusting that transforms even the rubbish heap into a thing of beauty, and the street outside is unrecognisable,

then the only thing to do is to wear one's stoutest boots,

and set out to visit as many places as possible before work; a journey that will take in

London Fields south,

London Fields north,

the St John of Hackney churchyard,

the Tower of St Augustine,

Haggerston Park,

the front garden of the Geffrye Museum,

and Hoxton Square,

all before ten o'clock.

And it will make you happy.

There is a fox in this picture:

You might not see him, but he's there... he lives in Haggerston Park, and is starting to make a habit of running across Goldsmith's Row right in front of me when I'm walking home in the evening. Not when I'm ready for him, mind; no, when I have the camera out and on and I'm proceeding cautiously and watchfully, waiting for a flash of gingery whiskers, all I see is this:


But when I'm striding home in the sharp briskness, never even thinking of a fox, THEN he sidles out through the railings about three feet away, doesn't he? Little bugger's just taunting me now; he stood there and stared at me, while I fumbled madly with gloves and bag and camera and trying not to stand on the bike path, and just when I was ready he sauntered off again... maybe another time. Or maybe not.