Gothic iced

Some eerie effects left by the heavy overnight frosts this week...here's a padlock on old shed door bound with iced cobwebs. My eye is drawn to the funnel-like hole above the bar - why does this seem the creepiest part of the picture? Possibly because the thickness of the web shows the door has not been opened in a while (what secrets are behind it?) and there are intriguing contrasts in texture between the rotting wood, the cold steel of the lock and the fragile white lace of the threads. Definitely one for the writer's notebook.

I found some even thicker ice cobwebs hanging from an outdoor lantern:

 

In fact, everywhere I looked I could see more filigree picked out by the frost as the sun struggled to rise through thick wintry clouds of cold air.