Snowbirds

  Two inches of snow might as well be two feet.  As far as Château DeVice is concerned, this is enough not to risk going to work.  The fact that the main roads may be relatively clear is neither here nor there - I'm not walking up the road to check them just in case they are clear.  Although, Château DeVice has been invaded by sisters, nieces and nephew, so I've escaped upstairs to construct this post, and I'm actively considering going to work to get away from it all once this has been posted!
  Anyway, here are the snowbirds: 

Here's Beaky lurking amongst the plant pots

BARELY ANY BOOKS NOT ON CHAIRS SHOCKER!

 I've been thinking about reading recently.  This thinking was spurred on by the Host's recent post concerning half-remembered books that may or may not exist.  And what I'm thinking is: I should really be reading rather than thinking about reading.  Especially as I haven't actually read a book since November's The Very Mistress MJ Diari-

  Doesn't count!  It's mostly pictures.
 Well, what about back in October when I read Delilah Smythe's Pulverised Pumpkins?
  No.  Deciphering second-hand recipes from the "words" that vindictive cow has strung together using profanities is not reading!
 When did we read Anne McCaffrey's The Rowan, then?
  "We" didn't read it - I did!  You got irritated and restless with the Rowan's caterwauling when she got swept up in that mudslide only a few pages in, and disappeared to torment Beaky, as I recall.  And I read that this year.  Back in January.

 Ah!  Universe!
  No.  Mostly me again.  And that doesn't count either as we only looked at the Night Sky chapter for the constellations.
 Fine.  So I haven't read a book in an age.  But other than The Rowan, you haven't either!
  Well, no.  Ah...  It's just that...  Well, since November, Evil Edna has been full of great shows that need watching...

::

Wake Up! Morning Has Broken

  This morning's sunrise as seen from the top of the promenade in Overstrand:

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Slippage

I've always liked the look of Scots Pines
These few (centre) just East of Sidestrand Church
always garner a second glance

  I went out for a walk on Thursday morning, intending only to go as far as the top of Tower Lane in Sidestrand and look out along the cliffs.  However, there looked to be rather less cliff top than when I was last up here, so I continued walking to see how much had slipped down onto the beach.  Before I knew it, I was in Trimingham.
  Needless to say, I took a load of photographs (many of them quite appalling due to the bright sunshine - Camera doesn't seem to do so well in direct sunlight), some of which almost match up to those I took back in July for the August Clifftop Calamities posts.  For your convenience, below, I have posted Thursday's photos with their corresponding July shots beneath them so you can contrast and compare.  Even if I hadn't pointed out which is which, you can easily tell because the July shots are the ones full of cloud, as is typical of a Great British Summer.

At the top of Tower Lane looking back towards Overstrand
Despite being the middle of Winter, it doesn't look bad

Almost the same shot from mid-Summer

~:~

Is There Somebody at the Door?

◁◁DING DONG▷▷  ◁◁DING DONG▷▷

Clearly there is.

Hang on!  Hang on.  I'm coming...

*click*   {{CREEEEEEEEEAK}}

Hel-  Yikes!

 Oh.  Hello Hercules.  Mind your lyre on the door frame as you come in.  And I expect you'd better bring your swan in, too, as there's a hungry-looking dragon and a fox loitering in the driveway.  Not to mention that creepy Tripod lurking on the corner near the Nightship stop...

This Tripod is a perv - it peers through the window of the Smallest Room

::

 For those who need to know, this is how the view from my front door looked before my eyes had adjusted to the dark:

What awaits you when you open your front doors?

A Town That Cannot Always Be Found and Other Almost Forgotten Tales...

Cover via Turn to 400 

  I need some help remembering some story books from my childhood.  I read a lot of weird and wonderful tales when I was young - Joan Aiken's A Necklace of Raindrops; Enid Blyton's The Magic Faraway Tree; Thomas Keneally's Ned Kelly and the City of Bees; C. S. Lewis' The Magician's Nephew; Ian Livingstone's Deathtrap Dungeon; Nicholas Fisk's Trillions - but there are some stories that I just can't remember enough of to work out whether they are from actual books, or just things I've made up or dreamt about.
  I've googled (and "Bing"ed) until my fingers are bleeding and sore, and I've even resorted to asking both Indescribable (an avid reader) and Inexcuseable (good memory), but neither was of much use - Indescribable thinks these weren't children's books, but stories for adults (especially the "Death of Adults" one, see below), and Inexcuseable thinks these were all dreams I had.  Useless!

  Anyway, the following are the stories that I'm most curious about.  I don't know what the book titles are, or who wrote them, or whether they're short stories, novels, one of a series etc. or whether they are for children or adults (although, despite what Indescribable says, I'm leaning towards "for children").  

♗ "Maxi and the Magician"
  A tiny boy, maybe an inch or two tall, and a normal-sized male magician.  They are a double act - Maxi helping the magician with his illusions - and a family (child and guardian).  Maxi is carried around in the magician's pocket.
  In one story, Maxi becomes normal-sized but is not recognised by the magician (who may have another tiny child in place of Maxi).  I think this may have been Maxi's dream because I seem to remember him telling the magician about how scared and lonely he felt as a normal-sized boy.

A Realm of Ice and Sand

The view East from the cliff-top

  As I was sitting at Computron on Thursday morning sifting through the dozens of photos I'd just taken on the beach, I realised that I do keep getting snaps of the same things. The same views of the same features from the same walk - time after time after time. However, I can't help myself as the beach here at Overstrand is so beautiful, and the changes in the weather - no matter how small - can make all the difference.
  As luck would have it, Thursday morning saw temperatures low enough so that Overstrand Beach had something different on show: Ice!
  Before you jump to the wrong conclusion, I don't mean that the sea had frozen - the temperature wasn't Canadian Winter cold - no, the ice was from the fresh water that seeps out of the cliffs and across the sand.  So, this selection of photos, while including some familiar sights, does have something different from all the other beach photos I've bombarded you with over the years. 

"Oh, it's you again.  Keep the noise down as we're trying to sleep."

What can be seen through this overgrown orifice?

Pre-Debigulation and Post-Rebigulation beach scenes

  These are the rest of the photo's from the Land of the Giants misstep.  I meant to post them on Sunday or Monday, but forgot, and I've just come back from another walk on the beach with yet more photos, so I thought I'd quickly pop these up then post this morning's either later or at the weekend.
  At some point, I'm going to get back to those night sky photos and draw up some more elaborate constellations that actually look like what they're supposed to depict.  At some point...
  Anyway, for now, here are those beach photos from 31st January:

Heading East towards Sidestrand

The exposed chalk reef

Land of the Giants

 Oh, no.  Not again...

Unlike at the Very Mistress's,
clicking here debigulates...

 Walking through the exposed chalk rafts on Overstrand Beach, we must have inadvertently trod on - and activated - the lock for the Lilliputian Cusp interface.
 Finding ourselves at a less than ideal stature (if one can call being reduced to only three centimetres tall "stature"), we had little choice but to try and make it to the End-of-the-Line where we should revert to our far more usual height...

Vestiges of a Blue Moon

Last night's Super Blue Blood Moon
(I was too late to get the bloody red hue)

  I wouldn't normally publish two posts in one day- 

You might say such an occurrence only happens once in a blue moon!

Sighhh...

  Anyway, since Indescribable called me after she'd dropped The Little Witch off this morning to say I should go out and photograph the setting moon, I've now got these extra photos.  I couldn't leave them until the weekend, as I've already got some beach photos that will span two posts (I know.  I'm spoiling you!) that will take up Saturday and Sunday.  And the longer I leave them, the less relevant they'll be.  Plus I'll undoubtedly have even more photos to do something with over the coming days/weeks/months, so I'll never find time to squeeze them in.

  So, here is the second post of the day: the last hurrah of the Super Blue Blood Moon as it rolled down the cliff before crushing the denizens of Cromer.  Oh, and the sunrise that was taking place opposite which lit up surges of salty spume:

Sunrise, Not Toothpaste

A shock non-Moon photo from the smallest room

  What better way to begin the month than with a sunrise?  Albeit one from January, but still...

  The Little Witch pointed out this beautiful sunrise through the smallest room's window as I was supervising her teeth-brushing (i.e. making sure she wasn't going to smear toothpaste over the walls and my towels).  It was so lovely that I just had to pop down the road to get some photos unencumbered by telegraph poles and the like.