January on the Allotment

I decided to take a drive out to the allotments today to see how they were faring in the cold weather.It was sunny and bright but very cold at around midday, not a lot of frost around but even the grass on the pathways was hard and crunched beneath my feet.Pic above is the view down the 'new ' plots of last year.
Photo taken from the end of our plots, frost can be seen on the path where the sun has not gotten around to shining yet.Not a body to be seen and I did not hang around too long either!
Our own plots with our poor scarecrow, I still have not gotten around to rejuvenating him...one of these days!A lot of work has been done for this coming season but more would have been done only for the very wet weather we had in October & November. I heard on the radio today we had the wettest November nearly in living memory and now we have had the coldest December for over 30 years, would this be an omen we are going to get the hottest summer this century? I think not, somehow Global warming has not found us here in this small island yet!I think it will be sometime before we get on to the plots to begin digging again.
Sun Shining but the ice on a pathway shows no sign of melting at midday!The sun may be out but the temps are not rising above 2% Celsius.
At home, my trusty water butt that kept us in loo cistern water for the duration of the water cuts back in November. I thought the lid was a bit to one side and went to straighten it but could not move it as it was stuck down firmly with ice. I eventually freed it and could not believe the top was frozen solid.
I tapped the butt all the way down and sure enough it was frozen solid all the way, not a drop when I turned the tap on!
We have had 2 weeks of these very cold temperatures so far and at least another week to go. We in the South are not getting it as bad as other parts of the country who have had to contend with snow and ice as well.