Liam The Ice Smasher

At the tail-end of the winter, Liam and I went for a short bike ride, and got sidetracked, literally, round the back of County Hall, ending up down by the railway tracks where we found a frozen-over pond.

Not content simply to admire this natural phenomenon, Liam wanted, of course, to destroy it. To smash the ice, though rather sweetly under the pretext that there might be animals trapped underneath it, "like frogs and newts".


So we went off looking for "gigantic stones or big bricks". We found a couple, and I launched them skyward over the pond and, it does have to be said, they did make an entirely agreeable and impressively loud 'plop' sound with volcano-esque explosive fountain upon entry.

When we found a wooden stake of some description (left lying around by local vampire slayers), Daddy was entrusted with slamming it into the ice - and, as I like to think the photos attest, I didn't let him down. It was then interesting to lift the stake up so the ice cracked a bit, creating a spider's web pattern of cracks around the entry point... I'm sure a physicist could explain it, but that doesn't take anything away from how cool it looked.

I'm especially appealing for appreciation of this last photo; I mean, the timing, the perspective, all with a mobile phone... Come on, admit it, it's quite good.