Es wurde kalt (endlich)

It's finally cold!!

Finally...

And by cold, I mean -4 or -5 degrees Celsius overnight ( so 24.8 to 23 degrees Fahrenheit), causing things to be frozen even in the mid day sunshine... that's right, sunshine; it is damn beautiful outside today! Blue skies and white puffy clouds as far as the eye can see! It's still not colder than the cold spells I grew up with in Homosassa, but things stay frozen longer because it doesn't warm up as much during the day here as it does in Florida. Right now it's about 1 to 1.5 degrees C outside (33.8 to 34.7 degrees F), and the little pond out back of the kitchen is still frozen, as are a good deal of puddles around the yard and around town.

And yesterday it sleeted (is that a word?)! We were driving along and it was raining lightly, and some of the rain was falling in the strangest patterns, but it was a raindrop when it hit the windshield. "That's funny rain," I said, wondering if it could possibly be sleet, although it didn't feel cold enough outside. "That's because it's snow," was the response I received. It became more snowy and less sleety at some point in an area where it was half a degree cooler, and the twirling snow drops were much more clearly snow and not funny rain.

Tomorrow it is supposed to be even colder and snow!

I find this all rather exciting, possibly because I had expected it to be colder here than winters were in my childhood/teenage years in Florida, more frozen and bright like it is now, or possibly just because it's something different that I haven't experienced for prolonged periods of time before now.

Regardless of my interest in snow and frozen landscape, however, I do hope that the weather forecast is clear and NOT snowy / icy in Germany at the end of this week / beginning of next week, because you're not allowed to drive in Germany when it's frozen unless you have snow tires (tyres ..... snow tires are studded and they do not need these in England because it just doesn't get cold enough). I'm excited about going to Germany and really don't want this frozen medium to decide that I cannot go (did I mention yet that I'm going to France early Friday morning and stopping in Holland on Sunday on the way to Germany?).

I suppose that France and Holland will be fine, though, if Germany is out of the question.