Skies, Birds, Lovely in January

Yesterday I drove Offsprog One back to Brighton, where her room was dribbling with condensation and colder than it was outside.
I did take this picture of the view out of her living room window, as seagulls arced through the sky and jostled for a chimney-pot perch. I gave her a fan-heater and drank tea before reluctantly leaving her to the chill and damp, an unsuitable studying environment but all too similar to my own Brighton experience years ago.
Beautiful houses, made of paper tissue!
Today's trip was to Oxford, to visit my cousin and his partner (inspiration for Autumn Love) and a large family gathering. The  journey was beautiful, a drive past thousands of fanned-out tree skeletons against the cold blue skyline. Up above, planes drew sharp lines in the cloudless blue of the sky like creeping daytime shooting stars, and hefty buzzards with dangerous-looking beaks and tremendous wingspans hovered in the thermal eddies from the motorway, joined occasionally by hungry little kestrels.
January can be a beautiful month; an exciting electricity crackles in the air.
Anticipation, anticipation, a better year ahead, always better!