Winter's Returning...15º And A Frozen Lake

7:23 (Bemus Point)

7:24

7:25 (Bemus Point)

It's always strange to get up as Daylight Savings Time begins anew.  What was once a morning sunrise, is now dark and I have to wait an hour for the sun to rise.  In other words, my early mornings have returned to the darkness of December and January when the days were short.

Sunday morning was winter cold, as it should be, with temperatures in the teens.  It made us think twice about going to for a walk.  We dragged out our coffee, reading of the paper, cleaning up the kitchen until 11:00 when the thermometer got up to a toasty 19º.

Thunder Bridge

So we donned out warm clothes, drove off to the Chautauqua Institution for our typical Sunday walk.  And, surprisingly, it was comfortable and energizing for both of us.  The walks of Chautauqua had a December almost Christmas feel, as the trees were frosted with white, the roads covered with a couple inches of snow. It's as if winter was just beginning...if only.  Once again, we avoided the lake road as the wind was strong and cold, especially on our faces.  We cut our walk a bit short but still got in a good hour, as we enjoyed the cold air, the winter wonderland and typically, we were the only ones out enjoying the morning cold.

The Back Side Of The Amphitheater

We looked forward to our return home because we knew we had a 'big breakfast' waiting, organic eggs, Lighthouse breakfast sausage, bagels and a good cup of java.  While Evie put it together, I stayed outside and shoveled the four or five inches of snow on our parking area, keeping it up, readying it for the 5-8 inches that are supposed to arrive tonight and tomorrow.  As we ate breakfast,  we watched a CBS Sunday Morning which spent the hour looking at the War On Cancer, the success and failures and hopes for the future. It was sad and hopeful at the same time.  Definitely worth watching.

The rest of the afternoon was a leisurely Sunday, the kind of day we have been having too often recently, staying in our comfortable house rather than getting out and doing something like hiking the Allegheny State Forest or Westside Trail.  Maybe this week.  I ended up finishing my book, taking a nap, watching some basketball, no surprise.

Dusk at 7:45

Around 5:30, when dusk was supposed to begin, we sat down to a bright early evening because of DST.  We don't like it.  We are not supposed to have cocktail hour in the daylight hour.  We were sharing a porterhouse steak, so Evie had put some potatoes in the oven to bake around 5:30, so we ate at 6:45, steak, salad, potatoes, and roasted cauliflower.  We were looking forward to the last episode of THE HONORABLE WOMAN, wondering if Nessa survived the bombing.  She did and the series ended with mother and son together but the Middle East was still a tragic mess of hatred, anger, violence and hope.

Moon And Clouds at 10:45 PM

We ended the evening watching Homeland, as Carrie puts her motherhood concerns behind and gets back in the game.  At this point, it's still hard to tell who is the good or bad guy which makes the show interesting, keeping the viewers coming back.  And I started my 10th Phillip Kerr novel, which follows Bernie Gunther, a German detective,  as he attempts to survive with some humanity in Nazi Germany during WW II.