Winter Wonderland

My husband drove us out of our snowy driveway and into the great beyond for some necessities of life. But before he did, he captured the view from the top of our hill, where we usually look towards the sheep grazing on the paddocks beyond and the mountains behind that. Well, the sheep were removed over a period of days and a snowfall on our coldest nights covered the peaks. I must admit that John is quite the perfectionist in getting this surreal image using his phone, which he said he had to hold perfectly still. Good on him, as they say here. Moving on into the car, we were driving out in his new but used GTI Golf with the front seats warmed, which felt awfully nice on this very chilled day. But it, like all of our cars, looked like it’d never been washed. The dirt from the rain and the filthy gravel roads and the muddy puddles and the driven snow and everything else floating around aimed at our lower chassis, seemed to be glued onto our car’s exterior and undercarriage. Whatever was loose though seemed to stick to my pants as I climbed in or out wearing my gumboots at first to navigate the muddy, cruddy gravely driveway, which I removed ever so carefully, gave to my mate standing at attention next to the open car door and then put on my shoes that would have sunk into the murky ground getting in and out. So those shoes stayed pristine, my pants didn’t, but my derriere was nice and warm.

We drove our usual route since there’s really no other way of getting where we were going, although we took a few side roads once we got into the larger towns south of our neighborhood. One by one we accomplished our goals, picking up, paying for and carrying back to the awaiting vehicle of our dreams, which of course was the dirtiest car in every car parking lot we parked on. What a claim to fame. There goes the dirty duo. Everyone else washes their cars or goes to car wash establishments, or even those do it yourself ones at certain gas stations. But we held the title for the scruffiest car around all winter. My husband is a minimalist. He despises useless movements or actions that really aren’t necessary. He is also frugal to a fault. I wouldn’t say he’s a miser but he’s close. When he wants to spend it though, such as on the car we didn’t need, our fourth automobile that is not garaged, but out in the elements like I warned him those many months ago, when he said he wanted this GTI….well you probably get the picture. He bought it anyway to my chagrin. I actually tried not to like it but it is so much more comfortable than the other three Citroens we own, even though they are all better than the old BMW we used to own. I know that there are simple explanations for why he feels he must cover our driveway with cars. One thing is for sure though, he is more than slightly eccentric. He is also opinionated to an extreme and worse yet the bugger is usually right about his car choices.

I will say no more except to add that the other photos are from our ride through the Weka Pass again, this time with snowy hills beckoning. I am writing this on the last really cold night this month after a succession of really cold nights. There’s a crackling fire in the woodstove that’s bolstered by coal, which holds the heat and really warms up the room. We’ve just had our evening meal that I prepared earlier of reasonably priced lamb bones that I browned and then roasted on a bed of fresh rosemary and sage and minced garlic, with parboiled potatoes and parsnip and carrot chunks lightly covered with olive oil, flaky salt and chopped dill. It was a perfect dinner for a wintry night, if I don’t say so myself and I am really enjoying the quiet noises of twilight turning into night.