First Frost and Homecoming

After a full week off it was a shock to the system with the dark early mornings and car lights being on when it came to come home.  However, so lovely to see the cosiness returning to the streets.  The Christmas lights are beginning to take shape in Peterborough ready for the switch on in a week's time.

Santa's lists have been given to me (after all, I am the real Mother Christmas!), so the Christmas shopping can now well and truly begin.

(I just love this advert: Isn't it great.  Parent's out there, do you relate to this??!!  I certainly do.  Especially when she finally sits down.)

We have had our first frost so I feel winter has taken her first breath.  Our plum tree is just hanging on to it's last leaves while the frost clings on tightly to our neighbour's roof.

The grass was beautifully crunchy under my feet that morning!

And the sedum looked like a raspberry ice cream.

Along with the frost comes the clear early mornings and evenings which means the redness of the first and last rays of sun fill the limited clouds with its warm redness.  On my way and back from work I spend as much time looking to the sky as I do on the road (I take the quieter roads...safer that way!).  The views across the fens are so beautiful at these times of day and night and I try to capture the perfectness of it all, but I really do need a better camera (a possible Christmas present - if my hubby is reading this!!).

The Cathedral now has the spotlights on early evening so I have a beautiful vision to look out onto as I leave work.  And, this tree!  Look at how beautiful this now looks.  After speaking to the gardener this is a purple beech, each season it takes on a completely different appearance, all as equally beautiful, but the redness of it at the moment is breathtaking.

It was also the Homecoming Parade of the Royal Anglian Regiment to Peterborough today.  There were hundreds cheering and clapping our lads home.  The great and the good were there and tributes were said for the 16 that never returned home.

It was lovely to see the Union Jack being flown.

The Regiment proudly marching through Peterborough to the Cathedral Square.  Myself and other work colleagues stood proudly receiving them back to safety.

And to hear the ceremonious speeches at the Guildhall was a fitting tribute.

So, that is my first week at work over.  A strange sort of week with some catering, dealing with contractors to do all manner of work in the wonderful building I work in...and a new Archbishop just announced.  I wonder what next week will bring?

XXX