The Wizard Walk

Yesterday, we had planned to drive to Lakeland Plastics near Wilmslow, just off the A34 heading towards Manchester Airport. With heavy freezing fog we decided to put off the visit. We went instead today. Their cafe is excellent and the quality of their products is second to none. We came away with a few Christmas treats and some bread tin liners, essential in a bread baking household.
On the way home we stopped at Alderley Edge, just above the village (Largest village in the UK) to walk in the Wizards Wood.
The Wizard is a tea rooms and cafe at the access to this extensive National Trust rural property. The Wizards Woods are an area of ancient forest at the back of the cafe. Within the woods are some of the copper mine workings dating back to ancient times, but we had gone today for the exercise.
The air temperature by now had risen to a cool 1 degree. With the sun shining into the leafless forest, the frost was glistening on the twigs and branches of the trees. The leaf litter also had a pleasing frosty sheen.
On close inspection, the freezing fog of yesterday had been blown away by winds and left a band of tiny icikle like frosting on the lee side of each branch. The effect was unusual as looking one way, the banches of the trees were brown and looking back, the branches were glistening white in the sunlight. Brrr!! glad I had my thermal hat, gloves and socks on.
In some areas of the forest, trees lay where they had fallen, slowly decomposing and playing host to a wide range of fungal growths. This tree trunk was a contorted one which had fallen to leave a wooden arch that you could walk under (I am not really holding it up).