Sue and Martin in Mallorca 2019

Sue and Martin in Mallorca 2019
On the Archduke's Path in Mallorca

Monday 28 December 2009

Dunham Massey in Winter (2)

Firstly, a bit of a Grump.  I hope you don’t mind.  This posting would have been made around noon yesterday (27/12) had my computer not suffered a violent attack from spyware known as ‘Antivirus Live’.  I think it must have arrived from a ‘banner’ on a website I had open at the time.  It completely evaded the ‘Zonealarm Extreme Security’ that I installed after the last, much less invasive, virus attack from ‘Shield Safe’, another evil thing that I removed a few weeks ago with assistance from Darren, Alan and Robert.  It has taken many hours of effort to remove (if only temporarily?) this latest spyware, and it has stretched my computer know how, such as it is, to new limits.

I was going to thank the above-named for their earlier help, and now I do so again, as without that help I wouldn’t have had the confidence to tackle today’s problem.

There is a Lesson to be Learned.  Don’t leave websites that stream advertising ‘banners’ open on the desktop, however reputable the host site may be.

Anyway, back to the intended topic, our Christmas Eve walk.  We were planning to go to Styal, but given the icy conditions, and the presence of an 84 year old in the party, we decided on the flat grounds of Dunham Massey and its surrounds.

So, only four days after our last visit, Sue and I enjoyed the same stroll from Dunham Massey to the Swan with Two Nicks via the Bridgewater Canal, now well frozen and suitable for skating on!

This time we had Jenny (Night Bird) and Dot for company in the snow.

The Bridgewater Canal was very well frozen 

Descending these steps in the ice was trickier than it looks!

Then it was through the meadows to Dunham Massey House,

Dunham Massey House (again)

and on along a familiar circuit around the grounds.

A mother lurches towards us on a tin tray, near the obelisk

We stopped for mulled wine, shortbread and brownies, of course!

Phreerunner, Night Bird, Dot and Nallo Lady sup hot wine

Then paused with many others to admire the fallow deer.

This stag clearly had itchy antlers 

The whole route apart from the descent from the canal was safe despite the ice, so we were able to return intact to enjoy our Christmas festivities, passing the usual selection of bird life on the way back to the car park.

Mallard on iceRobin on ice

Swan on ice

For anyone with an obscure fascination for Dunham Massey, Jamie from Trekking Britain went there two days earlier and took these photos.

6 comments:

Louise said...

Looks wonderful.

Should have had a pre-Christmas stroll with the girls, but it was snowing heavily at the time, so it was cancelled.

Since then, the snow has all but gone, but it's rained and hailed in between periods of plummeting temperatures, so it's an ice rink from the doorstep onwards. I'm trapped.

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and all the best for 2010.

Louise

Gayle said...

Good deer photo!

Martin Rye said...

I liked the Wales walk you did but the deer photos are superb. Fantastic.

Anonymous said...

Fantastic pictures!

Re: the malware, I highly recommend a visit to this site: http://www.geekpolice.net/virus-spyware-malware-removal-f11/ It's wonderful. Real experts give advice, free. They'll ask you to download a couple of prog's they've written themselves, and to post the logs generated by running them. They read the logs, see what's got hold of your computer and post instructions on how to remove. I can't recommend it too highly. Go there now, even if you think you're clean...

Phreerunner said...

Thanks Shirley, I'm certainly not free of the problems. Once off, the computer is hard to get going again due to being faced with a plain screensaver screen with no icons at all. I'll try your suggestion. But at least I've been able to use the thing today!

Phreerunner said...

The Geek Police were great. The computer now appears to be clean.
Thanks, Shirley.