Starry night over the Minto Bridges

    "Home!" said Pierre, and despite ten degrees of frost he threw open the bearskin cloak from his broad chest and inhaled the air with joy.
    It was clear and frosty. Above the dirty ill-lit streets, above the black roofs, stretched the dark starry sky.  

I remembered this passage from War and Peace, Tolstoy imagining Moscow's winter of 1812, as we crossed the Minto Bridges last night where the air felt equally cold and the stars looked bright. The new, eco-friendly (?) street lights are also very bright, casting long shadows of the metal bridge structure onto the white surface of the river. That's a winter phenomenon. The Minto Bridges after dark are a romantic place to be (in summer we sometimes see the moon reflected in the water there) offering a wider view of the cityscape and sky than from the streets. Last night we did a there-and-back walk to New Edinburgh so crossed them twice.

Warm front coming through today, a relatively warm front, that is, bringing snow.