Here in coastal south Wales, our winter weather is rarely as dramatically cold as locations further north: in my almost ten years of living here, we’ve had just one big dump of snow (the ‘Beast from the East’ in 2018) and, even during the recent cold snap, we only had the occasional sleet shower, where the sleet melted as soon as it hit the ground.

We do, however, get hard frosts and thick ice, making the pavements treacherous but the countryside beautiful. My photograph above really doesn’t do justice to how lovely the lake looked this particular morning, with the waterfowl gliding through the rising mist.

Here, my eye was drawn to the way the hoar frost followed the curves of the rings on the top of this wooden fence post. I’m not sure why that is, so, if you know, please do enlighten me in the comments below.

This ice was also eye-catching. The water below had drained away, leaving the layer of ice suspended in thin air. Again I’m not sure what caused the patterns but there did seem to be a rainbow-coloured oily sheen within the ice so perhaps that was the cause.