We first noticed ice on the north end of the lake on 13th November. However, it warmed up a little the next day and it looked as though most of it had melted.
We took this photo on 17th November which doesn't look much further along than it had looked to us on the 13th.
We took these two the next day, the 18th November (one in the morning and one in the afternoon) and with the amount of snow and freezing temperatures, you can see that the lake is pretty much covered now.
19th November 2010
20th November 2010
21st November 2010
22nd November 2010
There doesn't seem to be much changing on the surface at the moment, so we have decided to leave it a few days.
24th November 2010
We have the first person testing the lake.
He was obviously happy with the thickness of the ice, as the skating rink prep begins. Not being brought up with this sort of thing, we usually wait until the lake staff put up their notice to say the lake is safe to go on!
However, this was issued on 25th November from the Beach House saying that the last recorded ice thickness was two inches and it is not yet considered safe - oops.
Sunday 28th November 2010
It was quite a nice day out, not too cold. So more work begins on creating new skating rinks.
However, on 29th November, they Beach House was still suggesting that the ice is still not thick enough at just six inches, which seems quite thick. However, we believe the Beach House likes the ice to be 10" to 12" in depth for greater safety, (especially for use by the community at large as opposed to these few folk) which is just fine by us!!
On the 1st December the ice seems to be melting as the notice on the website had changed from 6 inches to 5.5 inches. It was still saying that on 9th December so we popped into the beach house. Unfortunately, due to the warmer weather, they are saying that it is unlikely to be considered safe until after Christmas.
However, while we wait, we have had a couple of garden visitors over the past week or so.
Have you ever seen a deer under a trampoline? They seem to quite like it under there.
Personally, we think seeing a deer on a trampoline, instead of underneath it, would make a much better photo!
We will keep you posted.
J&E
