Frost and flood

I was up at 4.15 a.m. as I'd promised to give Ben a lift into work - his shift starts at the unearthly hour of 5 a.m.! I had an ulterior motive for doing this - for once I wanted to be up early enough to enjoy an early morning walk along the river. 

Now that I don't have dogs to walk or offspring to get to college I find it much harder to motivate myself to get up early in winter! Amazingly. I even managed to get a couple of hours of work done, before setting off. 

The river valley was looking serene in the morning light. The first proper hoar frost of the winter embellished the last of the autumn leaves with ice crystals, which scintillated in the rising sun.(see extra). Needless to say I took lots of pictures of frosty leaves, fruits and seed-heads..

The river is still very high which limited where I could walk, but this is the view from a bridge across a backwater towards the rowing lake, which shows the still colourful  autumn foliage reflected in the calm flood water. I always find it hard to believe that we can enjoy views like this less than a mile from the city centre.