Sunsets, singing swans and frozen seas

Daybreak, Denmark (about 8.20am), New Year's Eve. I catch a startled movement out of the corner of my eye. A large male deer is jumping, agitated, on the bank at the side of our garden. My flushing loo has caused a commotion. I watch as he slowly calms and returns to feeding on a young bush. Then, miraculously, he ambles over to join a doe who'd been half hidden in the gloom. I wake my wife and we watch, transfixed, for 20 minutes, until they disappear behind the neighbour's house. I'd almost not made it for Christmas, the plane circling for nearly an hour as two snowploughs desperately tried to clear the runway below. The young woman across the aisle anxiously squeezing my hand as we finally came into land. But they do ice and snow really well here. The sea freezes every year, the temperatures have risen above zero for maybe only 10 days since early November. Think Narnia before Aslan. The garden snow littered with tracks: hare, deer, fox – the pine marten (I think) who has taken up residence in the roof and will have to be trapped and released (he or she is currently shredding the insulation). But the wildlife that truly takes your breath away are the birds that almost cover the bay. Hundreds of screaming whooping swans, thousands of geese in sky-clouding squadrons, countless eider ducks, oystercatchers, sanderlings. Binocular heaven (I was given a pair for Christmas). Though I also never tire of watching the tits, finches and nuthatch greedily feeding on the seed balls we scatter through the trees. So no gardening as such to be done. Just the joy of wandering around checking on the rerooted saplings, thinking of tidying, pruning and the spring to come. The next job will be to burn the cleared branches stacked behind the wood pile. But plenty of time for that yet. The solstice has come and gone and I swear the short days are a little less so. Happy New Year everyone. Missed you... But what of your plot, plans?