My friggin' winter wonderland

Dear hypothetical readers,

This is a post meant to awe and shock NZers. I would normally have a strong and negative emotional reaction to all the cold whiteness presented below, but all my energy is currently being taken up by my chattering teeth and shivering muscles.

We have had the heaviest winter in many, many years. I haven't seen so much snow since my childhood! Which would be a good thing, except the stuff just won't stop falling from the sky and I have to shovel it four times a day. And the nostril-sticking cold ranging between -22 and -8 C is a wonderful bonus. Oh, and, do you remember my frozen lock? It's now a daily occurrence.

However, winter seemed bearable (and almost pretty, but don't tell them I cracked!) last Saturday, when I and some friends went for a walk on the river. And I mean on the river. It's frozen solid. 

 

So solid, in fact, that some people were driving their cars on the ice. Others, less adventurous, were playing hockey or skiing. We had planned to walk until the ice gave way to water, but after 3 hours, there was no sign of that happening. Wise as we are, we realised it would probably take us the same amount of time to walk back home, so we turned back.

We saw a lot of animals on the way (foxes, pheasants, heaps of deer), as well as animal tracks. This might have been a very cold bunny:

 

You have to appreciate the care deer put in respecting each others' personal space. Everybody gets the exact same amount:

When I was back in the relative comfort of my relatively warm house, I thought of you guys again. You might never know the sheer, unadulterated bliss of being able to fold your hands around a cup of mulled wine after an entire day in the snow. But that's okay; you have the ocean. And feijoas. And that more than makes up for it.