Not as Cold as it Could Be

The forecast snow failed to eventuate. Though I think Chiefbiscuit has had some in her part of the country. The lack of snow doesn't mean warmth. I woke this morning to a bright sunny day, which means a hard frost. The water in this birdbath was still well frozen over at noon:



The sun doesn't reach the backyard in winter. There wasn't just frost, but a series of little waterdrops on the grass had frozen solid, like hailstones



and on this fern:



I am feeling lucky. My daughter and I went to see "Paris Je T'Aime" ( a series of "small neighbourhood romances" set in different areas of Paris) on Friday. I had free tickets which I had won by entering a giveaway on the website of the New Zealand Listener magazine. Buoyed up by my luck, I then went to the website of the Montana New Zealand book awards and cast my vote for reader's choice. This puts me in a draw to win $1000 worth of book vouchers. The next job on the list is to go through haiku I have written for one deep breath, and see which (if any) can be rewritten to a 5-7-5 pattern, for the haiku competition I previously mentioned - the prize for this one is a set of all the poetry book finalists for the book awards. (Those reviewed in my previous post, plus the three that are in contention for the best first book of poetry, which I actually preferred to the three in the main competition).