On the buses: route 93 at the Old Piano Factory

At last, a first snowy blip from the bus. I walked off our street today with Snow Grabber spikes on my shoes ( better than Yaktrax, for the record, and half the price) and down the slushy, slippy roads to town. Stopped to call CleanSteve and tell him that I hadn't actually recognised our car on the main road; it was disguised as a moominwagon. He later went down and swept the snow off the leaky roof, and just as he'd got it cleaned, the combination snowplough/gritter went past and redecorated it!

I took the bus to Nailsworth (missed the first one, so spent some time in Home Bargains, my favourite cheap shop, apart from Wilkinson's) and once there, let myself into the clinic where I sometimes work. Accidentally set off the burglar alarm, which went off with the sound of 1.000 klaxons. Located the correct code to switch off the awful din, and waited for the boys in blue to turn up. Waited some more. Left a note for reception, reset the alarm, and left the building. Guess they'd all gone sledging!

This shot was blipped on the A46 at Woodchester, just before both my batteries gave up. Shame, as I had only just realised that my amazing, effective at -20C camera also has a "snow and white sand " setting. It worked well on the white sands of Iona last summer: what a distant dream that now seems! This building, in the style of the older woollen cloth mills that line the roads of the Five Valleys around Stroud, used to be a piano factory, where instruments were built by hand. It closed in 2003, and 25 people lost their jobs. After lying empty for a number of years, it became home to a posh bathroom company, and also Lewis & Wood, who sell upmarket textiles and possibly wallpaper.

I used to rent a massage room at the nearby Frogmarsh Mill, from an artist who had her studio there. It was a lovely, lovely space, with a window overlooking fields of black faced sheep and a 'teasel tower' also connected with the textile industry, but I moved on, for various reasons, and the artist did too eventually. She is now the manager of Lewis & Wood!

See an aerial shot of the factory here

Back home once more, I've finished the jigsaw of frustration (CleanSteve helped) and I hope also to finish Brick Lane on audio tonight. Bomble has bravely gone out, even though there is still masses of snow on the ground; CleanSteve is watching Borgen; and the blackbirds will be having dried mealworms for breakfast tomorrow. Yum!

This is a quick edit on the basic photo software on the iPad. Don't think I've used it before.

More On the Buses blips are listed in my bio. I travel by bus fairly often, on country routes.