Icing Sugar

I suppose you can't complain if El Niño wants to play with the Christmas weather – it's his party, after all – but the strong winds coming up unseasonably from the south (unseasonably?  Is there such a thing any more?) are giving us a thorough drenching, with swollen rivers, saturated groundwater and repeated flooding further north in Cumbria.  Mind where you put that jet stream, El Niño!  And please stop twiddling with that Polar Vortex!

Floods and winds and mild temperatures somehow just don't make for pretty Christmas cards.  It's been a while since it snowed around here in December, but the association of Christmas and snow is pretty much indelible, it seems.  I found a nice print of the scene above in a stack of old proofs – in fact, a light icing-sugar dusting of snow from January 2013 – and thought about using it as this year's greetings card, but it seemed a little dishonest.

So instead I went all out for the Big Lie and montaged a total Winter Wonderland fantasy, with Hugin and Munin "at home" for Yule.  Check out that state-of-the-art wood-burning furnace, in the esquimaux chic guesthouse!  All welcome: but bring your own carrion!