Day 328: Spade

This is kind of an odd picture and quite honestly I can't give you a proper thought process behind it.  I didn't set it up or consciously think to myself "Hey, you know what would be cool?  A spade... and... some ICE!"  I was just looking around while I was out in the front garden trying to catch the Robin being wintry and Christmas cardish (so they pose all year round but it turns out they won't sit still on some sunlit snow - figures) and I was enjoying the small amount of sunshine that was coming in between the houses and wishing it was lighting something interesting as I am really quite fed up with winter's short day, sun-won't-get-above-the-houses induced, almost constant shade.  And there was the spade all wet and drippy and sunshiny and reflective and with an almost perfect gathering of frozen snow at the bottom.  It sort of perfectly sums up today: there were people digging the snow everywhere - from paths and pavements, driveways and roads - there is some amount of thawing (even though we are still under a blanket of white it is a much thinner blanket of white - like one foot rather than 2 in some places! :-p) and the base layer is about 3 inches or so of solid ice.  Somehow, today, that sunlit spade looked glorious to me.