Back to Winter

Tags

blackthorn, cannon bird scarers, flower arranging, North-east wind, quiz nights

I woke this morning to see thick frost everywhere and the sun rising.  All looked rather nice.  However, within an hour or so the frost had gone and so had the sun and we were left with gloom and cloud.  A cold day with a strong north-easterly wind.  We haven’t had too many winds from the north or east this winter so this makes a change (probably not for the better!).

One thing I didn’t say was that I was woken before the alarm by the bird scarers in the field of oil-seed rape near us.  The farmer is using  a new triple-cannon scarer which explodes very loudly THREE TIMES IN SUCCESSION each time it is triggered by birds – usually woodpigeons.  This has been going off all day.

  I had to go to Halesworth for my monthly blood test this morning and I was surprised at the amount of blackthorn blossom in the hedgerows, no doubt brought on by the mild sunny days we have had recently.  It would have looked so much better in bright sunshine today! 

Slight problem with my blood test in that it wouldn’t stop bleeding afterwards.  I had great difficulty driving home afterwards with my arm strapped up tightly. I left feeding the birds until the afternoon as usual but, typically, as soon as I got outside it started to rain very heavily and continued all the time I was out only easing off as I took my wet things off indoors.  The geese were noisy and nervous today.  They had been disturbed this morning by ‘their’ field being treated with fertiliser or something.  The tractor was driven very quickly and the birds got panicky.

So, not a very good day today.  However, R is home again from his travels and he is taking Monday and Tuesday off work which will be very pleasant.  Tomorrow we will be going to the coffee morning at the Rector’s house (if it’s on) and then do some shopping.  I will have to get some flowers for Rumburgh church as March and April are my months on the flower rota.  Lent is always in March and/or April and we remove the flowers from church during this time  So, by having both months I get about four weeks of flowers and four weeks without so it works out quite nicely.  I am absolutely no good at arranging flowers.  I’m afraid I have no interest in the art – I prefer to see plants growing in the garden and have no wish to pick them and bring them indoors.  For the church, I just bung some flowers I’ve bought from the florist in a vase and hope for the best. 

We have just had a phone call from some friends who asked us to make up a team with them for a quiz night tomorrow at St. James.  So, that’s tomorrow sorted out.  More later!

Holiday Memories and Other Musings

Tags

'Local Hero', Austrian Tirol, Cinqueterre, Hen Cloud, holidays, Lake District, Lake Garda, lambs, Limone, Long Sleddale, Northern lights, Ramshaw Rocks, Staffordshire Peaks, Tuscany

So nice to be at home for the day – no trips to the shops or doctors and no errands to run.  Spent the day recovering from a bad headache which bothered me yesterday and doing lots of ironing – lovely!  R phoned me earlier and mentioned that I might be able to see the Northern Lights this evening.  Went out well wrapped up as it is quite frosty tonight but wasn’t lucky enough to see them.  I would love to be able to see them – one of my greatest dreams I think.  I love the scene in the film ‘Local Hero’ when the young American oilman sees them while on the phone to his boss on the night of the ceilidh.  Tonight, in spite of waiting for some time and turning into a block of ice I saw nothing.  The stars were extremely bright but there was some light pollution on the northern horizon.  Heard a tawny owl in the distance and some squeaking in the hedge from some type of rodent.  How strange it feels to walk in the dark outside!  The heavens so clear above and so big and then not to be able to see the ground or one’s legs and feet at all.  Is it like swimming?  Almost a floating feeling – as though with just a little effort one might be able to rise up and up to the stars.

Rainy, wet morning today and then showers (some hail too) and then a little sunshine.

R and I have been talking about past holidays recently and thinking about where we might go this year so I’ve decided to post a few pictures of some of our holiday destinations over the last few years.

Last summer’s holiday was in Tuscany – so lovely.  Here are two photos I took on a trip to the Cinqueterre.

 

For the last few years we have gone to the Staffordshire Peaks in early summer.  It is a wonderful place for a holiday and also close to Manchester where R’s relatives live.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We went to the Lake District at Easter in 2010.  Lots of lovely lambs!

 

 

The same year we went to the Austrian Tirol.  We had gone to the same places in 1994 for our honeymoon.  The Lakes immediately after our wedding and with A for a week and then to Austria in August just the two of us.  A went to Disneyland Paris with her Dad for a week and stayed with my parents for the second week.

 

 

In 2011 we went to Limone on the banks of Lake Garda in Italy

 

 

Where to this year?

 

Spring is Nearly Here!

Tags

Beccles, blackbird, blackthorn, Bungay, butterfly, Dunwich, free-range pigs, greylags, mallards, Muscovy duck, rood screen, skylark, spring weather, St Peter South Elmham

A windy,cloudy morning on Sunday. R and I decided to go to the early service of Morning Prayer at St. Peter’s church as we were going out for lunch. There were only seven of us there, including Maurice who took the service and played the organ as well. Maurice always gives interesting and thought-provoking sermons and the church is such an attractive one – it has a wonderfully carved rood screen with a rood (cross) and statues on top too. Pleasant talk afterwards with very good coffee.
I think a future post will have to be about all the lovely churches in ‘The Saints’ – the area where I live.
We (R, E and I) took my mother out for lunch at The Dove at Wortwell which is just over the border into Norfolk. An extremely enjoyable meal and everything well cooked and presented. Mum came back home with us for the afternoon and we just sat around and chatted.
Monday was a glorious day; a gentle, almost warm breeze, lots of sunshine and blue sky. Mum had an appointment for a blood test so I took her to her medical centre and waited for her outside in the car. A long wait; even though her appointment was fairly early (10.30) all the GPs and nurses were running 45 minutes late already. Dropped her back home and then drove to Beccles to shop in Tesco. I drove up to the main road at Harleston and then straight to Beccles via Bungay. Just before Bungay at Earsham, there is a free range pig farm and I saw a number of little pink piglets running about. I do like to see free range pigs – they seem to enjoy life, rolling in the mud, socialising with other pigs or going off on their own to rest in their personal ‘bijou residences’ full of straw. The farm close to my house looks after pigs but these are store pigs not free range. One farmer will care for pigs just separated from their mothers for a couple of weeks until they are a certain weight and then they are taken off to another farmer who will fatten them further and then pass them on to someone else. Or, the pigs are kept by the same farmer but moved periodically from one shed to another. Every Monday and Tuesday we have the noise of frightened pigs being loaded into lorries at the farm close by and then driven squealing past us down the lane. Other lorries full of squealing pigs are then driven past to be unloaded at the farm.
I noted that the temperature had risen to 14 degrees centigrade at midday – a spring day at the end of winter. Hung some washing out in the garden when I got back home. While struggling to get the washing line up a butterfly flew past me. I did’nt see it clearly but it was a dark one – a peacock perhaps – and it was flying strongly. By the time I had the line fastened the butterfly had gone.
Rain overnight and a cloudy and showery morning on Tuesday. Caroline, who has retired from being one of our church readers, visited this morning to give me some books and stayed for coffee. She made me laugh very much by recounting an awful accident she and her husband had had at the weekend involving an exploding bottle of home-made liquid manure!
After lunch I took E with me to Bungay to buy Mum’s bird seed. The pet shop there sells very reasonably priced seed – much cheaper than in Halesworth and Beccles. I can afford to buy in bulk (which works out cheaper in the long run) and I order it on-line but Mum on her small pension buys small quantities weekly – well, she pays for it but I go and buy it. We then drove to Halesworth to pick up my medication and went on to Dunwich where E and I walked on the beach. The sun was shining on the coast and the tide was further out than it had been when R and I walked there on Saturday. The wind was stronger and the waves higher than Saturday too. E can’t walk far so we soon turned and made our way back to the car but not before we had both got earache from the cold wind. On the way back we disturbed a bird in the grass and shingle a couple of feet in front of us. By the way it flew and the shape of it’s almost triangular wings I recognised it as a skylark. It only moved a few feet further on and walked about pecking at the ground now and then. I could clearly see it’s crest on the top of it’s head. As we continued walking forward the lark decided to take off and at our head height began to sing! We watched it getting higher and higher singing all the while.
Took Mum for her weekly shop in the supermarket in Diss today. Another lovely day – so many spring flowers in people’s gardens and the blackthorn is starting to come out in sheltered and sunny places. Got home at 2pm, had a late lunch, made a few phone calls then went out to feed the birds. Twenty geese on the field behind the house today including the two who have claimed the island as their nest site. Eggs have begun to be laid on the island. The female lays the eggs in the very early morning, covers them (not very thoroughly because I can see them!) with grass and leaves etc. and then goes off with her mate for the day. Once she has laid enough she will start to sit for about four weeks only leaving them for two very short periods during the day to feed. Her mate stays close by, wandering about disconsolately all the time she is sitting and always seems pleased when it’s her feeding time when he joins her.
The mallards seem to have reached an agreement as we now only have one male with the female in the garden.
Our neighbour who lives further along the edge of the field at the back of the house came to talk to me as I walked round the garden. He owns the muscovy ducks (both female) but one of them has gone missing. The one he still has is sitting on eggs and kept chasing the other one off if it got too close. It has now gone missing and he hopes the fox hasn’t had it. I said I hadn’t see it and he was free to look round our garden for it. They are very tame ducks; they come when called and sit at his feet. The missing one likes spending time with their chickens as well. Our neighbour, his wife and children will be very upset if the duck can’t be found, I think.
I gardened until 5.30 when it got too cold to stay out though it was still wonderfully light. As I gardened I heard a blackbird singing for the first time this year. Tentatively at first and then with more confidence – a clear flute-like song.
A cold, starlit evening though by dawn we are supposed to have wind and rain again. R is away for a couple of nights til Friday.

The Phantom Photo

Tags

gardening, iris reticulata, spring bulb

One of the photos in an earlier post has suddenly disappeared and until the problem can be solved I have decided to post the photo again.

 

More Flowers in my Garden

Tags

Christmas box, crocus, daisy, grape hyacinth, iris danfordiae, iris reticulata, lichen, rosemary, Scilla sibirica, snowdrops, tete a tete narcissi, viburnum bodnantense, winter aconites, winter-flowering honeysuckle, winter-flowering jasmine

Scilla sibirica.  Brilliant blue flowers like miniature bluebells, they start to flower as soon as they emerge from the ground and continue elongating until they are about 10cm/4ins tall.  As you can see, mine have started to spread and the young ones are just coming up around the original group.

 

Winter Aconites.  Eranthus hyemalis.  Hooray!  At last!  A member of the buttercup family.  I can’t get rid of creeping buttercup and these won’t spread – most confusing!

 

Yellow crocus in the grass under the variegated sweet chestnut tree.

 

Yet another picture of my miniature iris, iris reticulata – I love them.  Look carefully at the bottom right of the group of flowers and you will see a bloom that has been nipped off and discarded by one of the kind animal visitors to the garden.  Towards the bottom left of the photo you can see some yellow iris danfordiae just about to come out.  I am really feeling quite smug about these as they are notoriously difficult to get to survive in this country.  The bulbs break up after flowering into bulblets which take a few years to mature and then flower.  One has to recreate the conditions where the plants originally came from – danfordiae from Turkey, reticulata from Turkey, the Caucasus, Iraq, Iran.  Good drainage; baked in summer, cold in winter.  As you can see, my soil is very stony in this bed and it is south facing so gets sun for most of the day in summer.

 

A tub containing snowdrops and tete a tete narcissi.

 

A rosemary flower.  Rosemary grows very well in our garden.  I have two large plants one of which is next to the front door in the herb garden.  Rosemary under the pillow wards off bad dreams and nightmares; rosemary next to the front door keeps witches away!  Rosemary for remembrance.

 

Daisies growing in the grass.  I couldn’t be without daisies.

 

Viburnum bodnantense flowers.

 

And again!  I found it difficult to get the right angle to photograph them from.

 

Winter-flowering Honeysuckle flowers.  Again I found it difficult to photograph these.  Gorgeous scent.

 

Christmas Box flowers.  These tiny flowers emit the most lovely scent – best on still, mild winter days.

 

A really pretty tiny grape hyacinth.

 

Mauve crocus under the weeping crabapple.

 

More mauve crocus.

Winter-flowering Jasmine.  This has been in flower since the beginning of November.

 

Two types of lichen on cotoneaster horizontalis.

 

And again.

 

 

 

An Afternoon at the Beach

Tags

bumble bees, Dunwich beach, elder trees, little egret, Muntjac deer

I have had a busy week with hardly any time in the garden and no time to add a post to my blog – until now.  The weather has been a little better this week – good for all the young people on their half-term break. 

Wednesday 19th Feb:  A beautiful orange sunrise – a pleasant mild day with lots of cloud and some sunshine.  A returning to Sheffield today so she came with me when I took my mother shopping in Diss.  We took her to the station after getting the groceries and waited with her until just before her train arrived.  She texted later to tell me what a long and unpleasant journey she’d had.  A landslip between Chesterfield and Sheffield meant that she had had to change trains at Nottingham.  Over an hours wait for the new train to arrive and then a long circuitous route to Sheffield avoiding the damaged track.  A dislikes travelling at the best of times – delays make her doubly grumpy (don’t they A?!)

Thursday 20th Feb:  Rain overnight and a cloudy, gloomy, breezy morning.  While R and I were drinking our morning tea we watched a deer wandering through the garden – probably muntjac though might have been roe; couldn’t see clearly.  Heavy rain followed by rain showers today.  Did lots of food shopping and then lots of ironing.  Watched a pair of deer grazing in the field on the other side of the lane at the front of the house.  The sky cleared after dark.

Friday 21st Feb:  A beautiful clear bright morning – almost a frost.  Water droplets had become gel-like but not frozen.  As the sun rose everything shimmered and sparkled – heavenly!  Took Mum to the eye clinic at the Norfolk and Norwich hospital again to have another injection in her eye.

  Poor lady has glaucoma, cataracts and macular degeneration and the injections are for the latter.  Her eyesight was so good until fairly recently.  She now finds reading, knitting, sewing difficult as well as all her household chores.  She it was who taught me to be observant, teaching me when I was tiny the names of flowers and birds.  I remember her showing me how to colour pictures with the natural dyes from grass and flower petals while we were on a camping holiday.  She pointed out bilberries to us all when we were walking across the North York Moors.  All we could see were rabbit droppings at first so that was what we called rabbit droppings ever afterwards.

Surprised at the large number of dead deer at the sides of the road.  Noticed bumble bees flying in the garden this afternoon.

Saturday 22nd Feb:  Another lovely day – more bumble bees about.  I managed to take a few photos of flowers in the garden this morning while R was trying to do something about filling in some of the deep holes and ruts made by the JCB.  The elder tree is coming in to leaf.  I am so pleased we have an elder tree as I love the frothy flowers in mid-summer and the beautiful berries in the autumn.  I really like elderflower cordial and the flowers also go well with gooseberries – they are in season at the same time.  Elder trees are traditionally magical – some traditions have them as evil trees and some as good.  In some parts of the country it was thought best to ask permission of the tree before pruning it or taking anything from it. Boggarts are thought to live in Elder trees.  (I remember reading ‘The Boggart’ by Susan Cooper to A when she was little).  Elders are very useful trees.  Flies do not like their smell so they were often planted near to cottages – larders, kitchens, dairies, outside lavatories!

R and I decided to drive to Dunwich and walk on the beach this afternoon.  It wasn’t as busy as we thought it might have been seeing as the day was so fine.  Lovely rolling waves –  R pointed out the hissing noise the pebbles make as the water recedes before the next wave rushes in.  What a good work-out for leg muscles walking on deep shingle beaches is!  I found a mermaid’s purse,  a dogfish egg case, and gave it to E when I got home.  We saw a little egret fishing in a pool near the shore.  We drove home as the sun was setting – the trees, black silhouettes, showing every twig and growing leaf bud against the pale sky.

Waves on Dunwich beach

 

View out to sea

 

Stonecrop, rope and other bits and pieces above the strand line

 

More waves with a juvenile herring gull

 

A fisherman with the town of Southwold and it’s lighthouse in the distance

 

View inland from the beach

 

Little egret in the pool

 

Little egret again.  Neither of these photos clear as I had to zoom so much to take the picture

 

Friendship and Other Matters

Tags

buzzards, friendship, greylags, Norwich Cathedral, ravens, skylarks, St. Peter's Hall and brewery

When we awoke yesterday our house was enveloped in thick fog and there was frost on the grass and our cars.  (Like a lot of people we have a garage full of rubbish and no room for even one of our cars!)  However, by 7.40 when R left for work the fog was clearing, the sun coming out and the birds singing loudly.  The geese had got visitors – I counted eighteen geese on the field behind the house – and the couple of muscovy ducks which belong to one of our neighbours were having a stroll together round the big pond.

I had to take E in to Halesworth for a hair appointment at midday and afterwards I shopped in the supermarket.  On the way home, in fact only a quarter of a mile from home, we saw something flapping at the side of the road and as we approached we realised it was a large bird with prey.  As it took off we saw it was a buzzard.  This is really exciting, as until just a very few years ago they were not to be found in this part of England.   When we lived for eighteen months in Somerset near Wellington we saw them every day and I got to love their mewing call.  The only other time I had seen them was when visiting the North or West Country on holiday.  I then remembered having seen a couple of buzzards soaring over us as we worked in the garden on Sunday.  How could I have forgotten this?  Are they here to stay?

  Thinking about our short residence in Somerset, reminds me that we had a couple of skylights in the roof of our house and I used to love to sit under them, looking up at the sky, watching clouds and buzzards and ravens.  Yes, ravens too, with their deep croaking bark of a call.

A busy but fun day today.  My dearest friend W has come to East Anglia for the week as her husband is working in the area.  We met in Norwich and walked to the cathedral which we wandered round and then had coffee in the refectory.  I then drove us to St Peter’s Hall, here in ‘The Saints’ and we had a lovely lunch, talking all the time.  The last time we had met was at her eldest daughter’s wedding in 2012 but naturally we weren’t able to talk much then.  We heard skylarks singing above the brewery next to the hall as we left to spend the afternoon at my house.

  W was so supportive when my first husband left when A was thirteen weeks old.  I had also just been diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis and could hardly walk.  She used to visit every few weeks bringing food as well as her own baby (my god-daughter) who was five and a half months older than A, kept me company and cheered me up.  Thank-you W.  I love you. 

  

 

Tree Pruning and Sundry (also Sunday!)) Activities

Tags

cooking apple, crabapple, eating apple, Evening Prayer, fig tree, greengage, ladybirds, pear tree, Tree pruning

I thought I would post a couple of photos of what our pond looked like last winter and spring so you can see what a difference has been made by the work we have had done.  By last autumn the willow trees had grown so large it was difficult to see the pond and not only had they grown upwards they had grown sideways and were spreading into the pond itself.  We decided something had to be done.  R thought he might be able to do it himself but the task was so huge and he was away from home so often and the weather so bad we decided to get a local landscaper to do it.

The first five pictures I took while we had snow and ice and the sixth is of the pond once the leaves had appeared.  I have also included a photo of one of the molehills in our garden.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Today R and I pruned all our fruit trees.  We have a Concord pear tree, a Brown Turkey fig, two eating apple trees – a Saturn and an Egremont Russet (the apples don’t look like Russets so we may have been mis-sold), two cooking apples – a Bramley and a Norfolk Biffin, a greengage and three crabapple trees.  The big weeping crabapple is a species tree, I think, and has the most beautiful blossom and strong rose scent.  Apples and roses belong to the same family.  The fruit is tiny and very popular with the birds.  I was given an Evereste crabapple tree for my birthday about ten years ago and I kept it in a large tub for a few years and then planted it at the front of the house near the weeping tree and gave it a prune.  The Everest then sulked for a few years and refused to grow though it flowered beautifully and had lots of apples.  Last year it began to grow at last but not very much.  I always leave the crimson and yellow apples for the birds.  They wait for the tree to be frosted a few times which softens the fruit and when the apples have started to rot the blackbirds especially, gobble them up.  This year the apples haven’t had the hard frosts to soften them so most of them are still on the tree.  The third crabapple is a Harry Baker with maroon leaves and dark crimson flowers.  The fruits are dark red, enormous and make gorgeous crabapple jelly.  We discovered the tree when we moved here, planted so close to the gas tank it had become quite distorted.  R dug it out and replanted it at the front of the house.  He has cared for it and nurtured it for nearly eight years and at last, last year, it started to grow really well and has started to put on some height.  It will always probably need to be tied to a stake but it looks so much better now.

The day today was fine and sunny and the wind had dropped considerably though it was still fairly strong and chilly.  The ladybirds hibernating in our bedroom are starting to wake up.  They were marching round the window wanting to go out so I left the windows open for a few hours.  Some have left, others went out for a while but came back later and some are still asleep.  R and I spent some time outside tidying borders etc.  R also cycled to Rumburgh church after lunch to put the heating on as we had evening prayer there today.  It was Caroline’s (she is one of our Readers) last service before retiring and moving to Beccles.  As often happens, we had no organist but we all sang with gusto and the service went very well.  We will all miss Caroline and her family very much.  It was very pleasant to be leaving Evensong in the twilight tonight – proof that the days are getting longer and the nights shorter.

 

 

Our Pond

Yet Another Windy Day!

Tags

aconites, crocus, Dog's Mercury, Escallonia, Pest-damage, phone scams, scilla

Such a windy night last night and it’s still windy now.  Walked down to the big pond earlier and could hardly keep upright – we certainly miss the protection from the prevailing wind the willow trees used to give us. 

Something has eaten some of my iris flowers;  a few blues, a couple of purples and my one and only plum-coloured one.  The flowers have been nipped off neatly so a mammal not a bird;  deer, rabbit or hare.  I get so disappointed when this happens but I know the animals see my flowers as food and they take advantage of a ready supply.  I don’t like putting edging round my flower beds but I think it may deter casual browsing/grazing.  I often resort to chicken wire but that is so ugly.  I will also try attaching human hair to something near my favourite plants.  Apparently, deer cannot stand our smell and will usually stay away from anything with our scent on.  The RHS in their gardens hang up stockings filled with hair collected from hairdressers to protect trees and shrubs from deer damage.  Not attractive but worth a try.

Some early purple crocus are out – so pretty and dainty – pale mauve with bright yellow stamens and at last some of my winter aconites are emerging.  In the garden we had in the house before last the aconites appeared first, before the snowdrops, in mid-January and they spread so quickly, especially into the gravel in the driveway.  Here however, they appear in February, reluctantly, and have no desire to spread anywhere.  I cannot find a place where they want to be.  We have a cold, exposed, windswept garden and there aren’t enough well-drained areas –  probable causes.

Dogs Mercury is coming up in the ditches.  A strange plant from the spurge family with tiny greeny-yellow flowers.  Extremely poisonous with a rather fetid smell, it is pollinated by midges.  It is also sensitive to disturbance and a sign of ancient hedges and ditches.  A woodland plant.

The heavenly blue scilla are appearing under the Escallonia which also suffers in our garden and I have no idea why. 

It is so good to have both my daughters at home.  They get on well with each other most of the time (there is eleven and a half years difference in their ages) but they do tend to tease each other, spend considerable time apart in their own rooms and then are disappointed that they didn’t spend enough time with each other when A goes back to Sheffield.  R kindly made our evening meal last night; a tasty risotto and tonight we will have cottage pie.  The girls don’t like mashed potato so I put sliced browned potato on top instead.  Tomorrow we will have a traditional roast meal; roast leg of lamb.

I had a phone call about an hour ago.  I answered and after saying hello a few times I was about to put the receiver down when I was greeted by a man with a strong accent, probably Indian, who said his name was Robert and was from the computer repair team.  Why Robert, and why not give his own name?  This is so obviously a scam that giving his own name wouldn’t make much difference.   In fact, it may make me listen a little longer.

  When I was growing up in Kent my father used to patronise the corner shop run by a very hard-working Indian or Pakistani man called Dave.  My father used to get his tobacco and cigarettes from there and Dave kindly cashed cheques for Dad.  Dad was always short of money.  When my mother asked what Dave’s real name was my father was astounded.  ‘His name’s Dave!’ he said.