29th February 2016 I propose... Haaris or Hair Ice be better known.

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Monday 29th February 2016. 8F, -2C, hard white frost, no wind, distant mist clearing, heavy overcast. The forecast for the next week doesn't look much different. Frost every night and a bit of snow between sunny periods, now and then.  Have you ever wondered about time? Why is it wasted on the young? Who get to use great chunks of the valuable stuff just wishing it away. While the elderly have the time rug whipped out from under them as it accelerates towards infinite speed and the inevitable buffers.

They say you can't put a wise head on young shoulders but there isn't much wisdom in old age these days. It's mostly about surviving the slings and arrows of outrageous youth as we take the blame for mucking up their world. Not that we had much choice in the matter. We can only fall on our swords for having voted for the lamest bunch of self-promoting ducks in the queue for the musical chairs on the gravy train. 

What brought this on? The idea that on a particular day of, only one year in four, a woman may propose to a man. So, once every four years, a woman has a "sort of right" to do what men can do every day of the year, every year. In other words, women have  only 1/1461 as much "right" to propose as any common, or garden, man. It doesn't seem much of a reward for "burning their bras" half a century ago. It took that long for a popular newspaper to stop showing the results of that burning!

Moving swiftly on... the firm ground offers new route options usual denied to me in my desire to avoid mud collection. It's bad enough gathering mud on my tyres from just riding down the drive. That permafrost has a lot to answer for! Until you have experienced it you have no idea what you are missing. I walked the length of the more distant woods and back along the main road. Lots of Yellowhammers sharing the felled hedges with Chaffinches. Oh, and a road kill robin. Saw strange, snow white fungus[?] or [rather] Haaris-Hair Ice on fallen branches in the woods. So both ice and fungus in fact. I had never heard of it, until today.

Ice Formations Diurnal Freeze-Thaw Cycles

Mystery of HAIR ICE solved: Strange white frozen growths found on trees are engineered by fungus | Daily Mail Online

Mid afternoon shopping loop. Going well but it felt very cold. 20 miles.

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