Walks With Elinor – Reydon Wood

Tags

bluebell, coppice, dog violet, Goldilocks Buttercup, great crested newt, Holly, Hornbeam, Hoverfly, lesser celandine, primrose, Reydon Wood, Suffolk, Suffolk Wildlife Trust, walk, water-violet, wild strawberry, Wood Anemone, woodland

Let me take you back in time to the end of April of this year.  In preparing this post it has been strange looking through my early spring photographs while the leaves outside are falling from the trees and most of the flowers have gone.

Elinor and I had enjoyed our two previous walks in Halesworth and Beccles but this time we wanted to get away from people and buildings and into the woods.  One of our favourite places is Reydon Wood which is cared for by the Suffolk Wildlife Trust.  I have written posts about family walks in this wood a few times before but the last time we visited was about three years ago; how could we have left it that long?!

Reydon Wood

The weather was perfect, chilly but sunny and there hadn’t been any rain for quite a while so the paths were free of mud.  Spring was cold and late this year so the first leaves were only just beginning to show on the trees. The wood was full of birdsong and we soon found any number of spring flowers in bloom.  The light was strong and bright which was not conducive to good photography, for which I apologise.

The path through the woods

I love these perfectly pleated Hornbeam leaves (Carpinus betulus )

Common Dog Violets (Viola riviniana ) and a small white Wild Strawberry flower (Fragaria vesca) in the centre of the picture

Reydon Wood is quite small and would only take twenty minutes or so to walk round if one wasn’t interested in stopping and looking at anything.  We heard a couple of women approaching from behind us and stood to one side as they walked past talking non-stop.  We waited while the noise of their voices faded and birdsong re-established itself.

We saw Wood Anemones (Anemone nemorosa ) in the wood for the first time

Primroses ( Primula vulgaris) were in flower

There are plenty of coppice stools like this in the wood

Reydon Wood is coppiced each year.  Some of these trees are hundreds of years old and have been supplying wood for generations.  Here is a link which explains what coppicing is.  A copse is a wood which is or has been coppiced.

A clearing was carpeted with Primroses and Lesser Celandines (Ficaria verna )

Great Crested Newt ( Triturus cristatus)

In this clearing is a large pond which is home to all sorts of interesting creatures and plants.  The Great Crested Newt is Britain’s largest newt and has suffered in recent years due to habitat loss, especially by the infilling of ponds.

Water Violet (Hottonia palustris )

The Water Violet isn’t a violet at all, it is a member of the primrose family but the petals are a very pale lilac-colour which may be the reason for its common name.  It is usually found in sheltered ditches and ponds with shallow clear water which is rich in calcium.  Another name for it is Featherfoil because of its fine feathery leaves.

Tangled branches and shadows

The Bluebells were just beginning to flower (Hyacinthoides non-scripta)

Spring leaves

Woodland in the springtime

I always like to greet this giant Holly tree with its weeping branches (Ilex aquifolium)

A Hoverfly of some sort sunning itself on the path. With their large ‘fly’ eyes they always look like they are wearing large sun-glasses.

Goldilocks Buttercup (Ranunculus auricomus )

A spring-flowering buttercup.  The whole plant, including the stems and the leaves, dies back by mid-summer.  The flowers are usually deformed with petals missing and the upper leaves deeply cut.

Deeply rutted path

We were extremely fortunate to have had such dry weather during the week before our walk.  The paths had set like concrete and though they were uneven they were easier to walk on than if they had been wet!

With any luck I will be able to add to this short series of walks before Christmas!

Spring Odds and Ends – April

Tags

amelanchier, blackthorn, bullace, cuckooflower, Damson, garden, garden plants, ground-ivy, horse chestnut, Lady's Smock, lesser celandine, lichen, Mallard, marsh marigold, mining bees, montana clematis, pasque flower, Pear, pond, Suffolk, trees, wild cherry, wild flowers

Blackthorn ( Prunus spinosa) in flower

This was the view from our front door on the 1st of April.  The rather untidy Blackthorn trees growing on the verge on the other side of our hedge looked like they were snow-covered; the blossom was so plentiful.

A mining bee nest-tunnel

Just over a week after I took the photo of the Blackthorn I was finding bee nests all over the garden.  Some were plain ones like the photo above….

Mining bee Nest -burrows

…and these ones.

Mining bee nest-burrow

But this one (the burrow is in the shadow of one of the seed-pods) has been decorated with twigs, bits of wood, stone and seed-pods! I wonder if this is just by chance or if not, were these to make it easier to find or, is the bee just more of an individual, more artistic than most other bees?  I have found other nest-burrows seemingly marked with twigs and stones.

Wild Cherry ( Prunus avium)

This is one of our wild cherry trees just coming into blossom in the middle of April.  The house on the left of the photo is that of our next-door neighbours and this long thin strip of land, in-between their garden and our leylandii hedge on the right, belongs to us and is where the former owners of our house used to park their combine harvester, so we are told.  We have planted a few trees on this strip of land; you can see a couple of hollies and another cherry has decided to grow here too.

Wild cherry blossom from one of our other cherry trees.

The first Pasque Flower

The same plant a week or so later

The flowerbed on the south side of the house. As you can see, it is very stony.

Amelanchier in flower

Marsh Marigold or King-cup ( Caltha palustris) next to the pond

The same plant a week later

I have posted photos of this lichen-covered tree-trunk before

A closer look at the different lichens

Abandoned goose nest on the island

For the first time since we have lived here we had no nesting geese on the island on our pond.  They built a nest and I am sure they began laying an egg each day prior to incubation but something happened and the nest was abandoned.  The water level in the pond was very low and it would have been easy for a fox to cross the water and get to the nest.  There has always been danger from mink and otters but up til now the geese have coped with them.  A fox is different and much bigger.  This is only a guess – there may have been other reasons; I don’t know.

Cuckooflower/Lady’s Smock (Cardamine pratensis ) next to the pond

New Horse Chestnut (Aesculus hippocastanum ) leaves and flower buds

We have a couple of spindly Damson or Bullace (Prunus domestica ssp. insititia ) trees growing in the scrubby area near our pond. This is a photo of the blossom and new leaves.

Pear blossom. We recently pruned and topped our pear tree as it was getting enormous. We should still get quite a lot of fruit this year, if all goes well.

Lesser Celandine ( Ficaria verna) and Ground-ivy ( Glechoma hederacea)

The Montana clematis flowered at the end of the month

A drake Mallard swimming on the pond.

I have a few more April photos I would like to share but I will save them for a separate post.

Spring Odds and Ends – March

Tags

blackthorn, blossom, Brown Hare, Bugle, cherry-plum tree, daffodils, daisy, Dog's Mercury, early dog-violet, flowers, garden, grape hyacinth, lesser celandine, leveret, March, Narcissus Rip van Winkle, Periwinkle, plants, pond, primroses, silver-laced primula, Spindle, St Mary's church Homersfield, Suffolk, Suffolk Lane, trees

Not having posted anything for over two months I have a number of photographs of things I’ve seen on my travels or in the garden.  This post will be a selection of these photos.

View from my kitchen window

This photo was taken with my phone early one March morning.  You can see the maple leaf sticker on the glass which works well at preventing birds from crashing into the window and injuring themselves.  Just outside the window is my witch-hazel which is planted in a large pot and also a Japanese flowering-cherry tree tied to canes, in a different pot.  We keep both trees up close to the front of the house to protect them from wind damage.  On the other side of our drive you can see the first of the daffodils in flower along the edge of the ditch.  What really excited me was the sight of a leveret, a young hare ( lepus europaeus), crouched in the grass.  Richard had had a sight of this young animal in the garden a couple of days before this and I was so pleased to see it for myself.

Leveret

I took this picture with my smaller camera from the utility room window and you can see how damp with dew everything was, including the leveret.  It stayed with us for a few days, hardly ever moving from its ‘form’, the nest in the grass it had made for itself.

The leveret’s form

Cherry-plum tree (Prunus cerasifera )covered in blossom

When this tree first grew I assumed it was an early-flowering blackthorn tree as they can look very similar.  However, a few years ago I happened to see some of its fruit before the birds ate it all and realised my mistake.

cherry-plum blossom

cherry-plum blossom

cherry-plum blossom

Silver-laced Primula

A year and a half ago I was trying to get rid of Common Nettle and Black Bryony in a flowerbed full of primulas and hellebores.  The only way to deal with them was to remove the plants I wanted before tackling the ones I didn’t.  I planted some of the primulas at the edge of a bed Richard grows dahlias in.  This March I was pleased to see that my treasured silver-laced primula had survived the move and two winters.  I still haven’t finished working on that weedy bed!  The Primula has a pretty silver edge to its petals.

Early Dog-violet ( Viola reichenbachiana )

We have these early violets growing in the grass round our pond.

Large pond

Large pond

Our large pond in March.  The water-level is very low due to insufficient rainfall for a year.

The front hedge and ditch

A week or two on from when the photo of the leveret was taken and the daffodils are all coming out.

I love these little Narcissus ‘Rip van Winkle’!

Grape Hyacinth (Muscari ), Bugle (Ajuga reptans ), Variegated Lesser Periwinkle(Vinca minor ) and Spindle (Euonymous ) ‘Emerald n Gold’.

This is a very narrow bed alongside the rear of the garage next to the back door.  All the flowers are blue and two of the plants have variegated yellow and green leaves.  However, just to prove that nothing goes exactly to plan, the bed also contains a red-berried Firethorn ( Pyracantha) which has creamy white flowers; this plant was here when we moved here and the birds and bees love it.

St. Mary’s church at Homersfield

We attended church here in March and I thought it looked lovely in the sunshine.

Primroses (Primula vulgaris )

That same day I walked round the garden and then out onto the verge next to the lane  beyond our hedge and found these primroses in flower.  Garden primulas are able to flower at any time of the year as long as it isn’t too hot or too cold.  Wild primroses, however, have their season and late March is the best time to see them round here.

Blackthorn (Prunus spinosa )

There is a tangle of Blackthorn on the verge and it was just coming into flower.  You can see our garden over the other side of the hedge.

Here is the Blackthorn on the verge.

It is a very untidy tree with suckers but it has blossom like snow and the fruit (sloes) in the autumn are used for flavouring gin, among other things.

Dog’s Mercury (Mercurialis perennis )

We have this rather insignificant plant growing under all our hedges and in amongst the trees near the large pond.  It is often a sign of old woodland and won’t tolerate being disturbed; it fades away.  The male and female flowers are on separate plants.

The daffodils at the end of March

Daisy (Bellis perennis )

Lesser Celandine (Ficaria verna )

Here is this sunshiny little flower peeping out from inbetween Common Nettles and Ground Elder in the ditch.

These were the highlights of March this year.  I hope to begin an April post as soon as I have published this one.  Whether I’ll be able to finish it and publish it in the next day or so only time will tell!

Reydon Wood

Tags

Alexanders, Barren Strawberry, Bugle, Common Dog Violet, coppice wood, cow parsley, Dryad's Saddle, early dog-violet, Early Purple Orchid, ferns, Goldilocks Buttercup, Great Diving Beetle, Greater Stitchwort, ground-ivy, Herb-Robert, Hornbeam, lesser celandine, primrose, Reydon Wood, Suffolk, Suffolk Wildlife Trust, Three-nerved Sandwort, water-violet, wild flowers, wild strawberry, Wood Anemone, Yellow Archangel, Yellow Pimpernel

We drove to Reydon Wood on Friday, in search of bluebells.

Wood Lane

We parked at the end of Wood Lane. The walk down the lane is pleasant and we get glimpses of the wood on the other side of the deep ditch on our right.

Alexanders (Smyrnium olusatrum) is in flower everywhere.

The Romans introduced Alexanders into Britain and it is mainly found near the coast especially in the east of the country.  It was used as a medicinal herb and also as a pot herb.  The flowerheads can be steamed like broccoli.

Greater Stitchwort (Stellaria holostea) is another flower that is blooming wherever I go at present.

The Anglo Saxons and Celts believed that a stitch in the side was probably caused by elf-shot and this plant cured it!

Greater Stitchwort

Our first sighting of Bluebells (Hyacinthoides non-scripta)

Cow-parsley (Anthriscus sylvestris) is coming into flower very early this year

There they are, on the far side of the ditch!

A beautiful Lesser Celandine (Ficaria verna )

Bluebells and Greater Stitchwort

To the left of us as we walked up Wood Lane we could see a field full of bright yellow Oil-seed Rape (Brassica napus) through the hedge.

I believe this is Goldilocks Buttercup ( Ranunculus auricomus)

This is the first time I have taken notice of this buttercup.  I have probably seen it before because I find they are fairly common in woodland, but I’ve never looked at one properly, just assuming it was a Meadow or Creeping Buttercup.  The stem leaves are quite different from the other buttercups I know and I read that the flowers are usually deformed or have some or all of their petals missing.

We arrived at the entrance to the wood

This is the first time I have seen Wood Anemones ( Anemone nemorosa) here.

There were a few primroses (Primula vulgaris ) still flowering.

Common Dog Violet (Viola riviniana )

This is the most common violet we have in this country and it can be found anywhere except on very acidic soils.  The leaves are heart-shaped and the spur (at the back of the flower) is much paler than the petals.  This violet is unscented.

Early Dog Violet (Viola reichenbachiana )

Another unscented violet; the flowers of this plant are paler and smaller than the Common Dog Violet and the spur is usually as dark or even darker than the petals.  The leaves are narrower than those of the Common Dog Violet.  This isn’t a good photo but it is the best out of the three I took!

Herb Robert (Geranium robertianum)

This plant could be named after St Robert of Molesme who founded Citeaux Abbey in France and who is said to have staunched wounds and healed ulcers with Herb Robert.  It could also be named after Robert, Duke of Normandy, the son of William the Conqueror and a patron of medical botany.  He used Herb Robert to cure the plague.

The path through the wood.

Barren Strawberry (Potentilla sterilis )

The flower here is past its best so it is not easy to see that the petals have a gap between them and that the sepals are clearly seen.  The leaves (on the right of the photo) are a dull, matt green and divided into three toothed leaflets with the terminal tooth on each leaflet being smaller and shorter than the adjacent teeth.

Wild Strawberry (Fragaria vesca )

Here is a Wild Strawberry, which I found just a few feet away from the Barren Strawberry and you can see the difference between them.  The petals are close together and mainly hide the sepals.  The leaves are a bright, shiny yellow-green and the terminal tooth is as long as (sometimes longer than) the adjacent teeth.

Here is the pond in the middle of the wood. On the far side are Water Violets (Hottonia palustris )

More Water Violets – I couldn’t get a better photo of them.

Great Diving Beetle (Dytiscus marginalis )

We watched this beetle for a while as it came to the surface to gather air which it stores under its elytra or wing cases.  The beetle’s spiracles (breathing pores) are under the wing cases and allow the air stored there to enter the body.  When the air is used up the beetle returns to the surface for more.  There were many newts in the pond too.

Yellow Pimpernel (Lysimachia nemorum )

A large patch of Bugle (Ajuga reptans )

Beautiful new green leaves of Hornbeam (Carpinus betulus )

Hornbeams look a little like Beech trees but the trunks have fluted bark and the leaves are toothed.  Hornbeams are regularly coppiced and Reydon Wood is a coppice wood.

A coppice tree which will probably be harvested in the next few years. The tree is probably many hundred years old.

The area just beyond this barrier has recently been coppiced and the stools (tree stumps) will be sprouting soon. The barrier has been built up using twigs and branches to stop deer from eating the new growth on the coppice stools.

Coppice stools surrounded by Bluebells and with the deer barrier in the background

A strange-looking stool which looks as though it might run off as soon as our backs are turned!

Harvested coppice logs

I believe this fungus is Dryad’s Saddle (Polyporus squamosus )

Early Purple Orchid ( Orchis mascula)

Early Purple Orchid showing its spotted leaves

Three-nerved Sandwort (Moehringia trinervia )

At first I thought this was Common Chickweed but then I noticed the petals are not split and that the sepals are longer than the petals.  The leaves have three to five parallel veins on them.  I didn’t manage to get a close-up shot of the plant.

Herb Robert (pink flowers) and Ground Ivy (Glechoma hederacea ) (Blue flowers)

Lesser Celandine, Herb Robert, Ground Ivy and Early Purple Orchid

 

 

Yellow Archangel ( Lamiastrum galeobdolon)

There is a cultivated form of this plant (subspecies ‘argentatum’) with silvery patches on the leaves which has escaped into the wild and is quite invasive.

Lesser Celandines and Bluebells

 

Early Purple Orchid and Bluebells

Fern and Bluebells

Bluebells and ferns

Here is a slideshow of the Bluebells we saw.

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The Bluebells were not quite at their peak and as the day was overcast and chilly we didn’t smell their wonderful scent.  We decided it would be a good idea for us to return in a week’s time to see how they had developed.  Unfortunately, we have had very cold weather this week with frosts and wintery showers of hail and sleet.  I hope the Bluebells are not too damaged.  I apologise for the length of this post.

Thanks for visiting!

All Change!

Tags

Crockham Hill, Dog's Mercury, family life, funeral, fungus, House renovations, Kent, lesser celandine, lichen, Lords and Ladies, Minsmere, moss, Norwich Railway Station, Peterborough Mosque, plants, presents, The Fens, trees, Tyrrels Wood, woodland

We have had a very busy few weeks here with very little time for relaxation.  We are all rather tired and stressed and could do with a holiday (or a few weeks at home with nothing to do!), though there is little chance of that just yet.

All the planned work in this first phase of house renovation has been done and we are very pleased with the results.  The new windows, doors and garage doors are looking good and the house and garage are feeling much warmer.  We still have a little sorting out to do in the garage and a few more trips to the tip and charity shops with the things we no longer need.  There is a little room at the back of the garage which had a toilet and wash-hand basin in it which we never used.  We had the plumbing removed shortly after Christmas and Richard painted the room last week.  He has bought some shelves for it and we hope it will be a good storage room for the bird-seed and fruit and vegetables.  It has a window which we hope to brick up and put in a vent in its place.  For now we will put a screen against the window to prevent the light getting in.

Potatoes chitting on the garage window-sill. Note the new window!

We worked very hard to get the house ready for the work and it was worth the trouble we took.  Most of the time there was just one window fitter – a very pleasant, hard-working man who was so proficient and tidy it was a pleasure to have him here.  He let us know which rooms he would be working on during the following day so we prepared by moving furniture and covering everything we could with dust sheets.  While he worked on one room we got the next ready and so we progressed round the house.  He was here for five days and on his last day with us he was joined by a colleague and together they replaced the Velux window in Elinor’s room.  It was unfortunate that the weather wasn’t very nice that day with snow, sleet, hail and rain showers and it took some time for Elinor’s room to warm up again.  We supplied the men with plenty of hot tea to help them keep warm!

I washed, dried and ironed lots of pairs of curtains and also took the opportunity to launder other furnishings too.  I feel I made a good start to my spring cleaning!

Elinor took her two mock maths GCSE exams the same week that we had most of the window work done.  (She is re-taking her maths because the grade she got last year wasn’t good enough).  She also handed in her art project work that she had been working on since Christmas.  She got a pass mark for the art (there are only two marks she could have got – a pass or a referral) and she got a ‘C’ for her maths which has pleased us all.  If she gets a ‘C’ grade when she takes her exams for real in the summer it will mean she has the minimum grade all colleges and employers demand.  She won’t ever have to go to a Maths class again or take any more maths exams.  (A sigh of relief from Elinor!)

View from Crockham Hill churchyard.

I now feel I must say how much I appreciated all your kindnesses when I spoke of the death of my aunt – I was most touched; thank-you.  The funeral went very well and was a very satisfying celebration of her life.  It was good to see my brother, sister and all my cousins and their families and to re-visit Kent and Crockham Hill, the village where my Aunt Marie and Uncle Fred lived for so many years.  Aunt Marie had moved away into sheltered accomodation after Uncle Fred died.

Aunt Marie and Uncle Fred

It was sleeting and snowing as I set off for my brother’s house that morning and that continued until my brother had driven us to the Suffolk/Essex border when the clouds began to break up.  When we got to Westerham in Kent where we stopped for coffee, the sun had come out.  My cousin had arranged a lovely buffet meal for us all after the funeral in The Royal Oak, Uncle Fred’s local pub.

The Fens in Cambridgeshire seen from the window of the train I took to Sheffield.

The Fens seen from a train window

The Fens seen from a train window

The Fens seen from a train window

The Fens seen from a train window

I travelled to Sheffield by train so that I could see Alice in her production of Agatha Christie’s ‘And Then There Were None’.  The play was excellently performed by all the cast and I enjoyed it very much.  I stayed at Alice’s house overnight and met one of her housemates and also Alice’s cat, Mona.  Alice and I breakfasted in the city next morning before I caught my train back home.

The Mosque in Peterborough seen from the train

Norwich Railway Station

These life-size figures stand outside the station and are rather a disparate group.  Admiral Lord Nelson on the left; born in Norfolk and was a great Naval commander during the Napoleonic Wars and was killed during the Battle of Trafalgar – Edith Cavell; born in Norfolk and was executed during WW1 for helping allied soldiers escape from occupied Belgium – Stephen Fry; born in London though grew up in Norfolk and is an actor, writer, presenter, activist and ‘National Treasure’.

I saw quite a lot of my mother during the middle of February as she had a number of appointments to keep ( two hospital appointments in Norwich and two with her local doctor) and a fair amount of shopping to do.  Elinor and I had a meeting at her college to discuss her support needs for her next academic year and to deal with any support problems she has this year. I had been looking forward to Elinor’s half-term holiday but as the window replacement carried on into that week and as we had other duties to perform it wasn’t as restful as I’d hoped.  Elinor had a hair appointment on the Thursday and we had planned to go with her and have lunch out in the city.  Unfortunately, I woke with a migraine and had to spend most of the day in bed.  Richard took Elinor to Norwich and they had lunch in a café.  Richard brought me back a lovely couple of presents.

My presents!

I love the design on the tote bag!  It is by the artist Amelia Bowman and is a view across the roofs of the market towards the castle. The book is also just what I need for my visits to the churches in the city.

We have managed two short walks; one at the RSPB reserve at Minsmere and the other in Tyrrels Wood which lies to the north of Diss and Harleston in Norfolk.  Neither of the walks were particularly interesting but we were out in the fresh (very fresh and cold!) air and were taking some exercise.

Minsmere trees

Minsmere trees

Minsmere trees

Minsmere trees

Richard at Minsmere

Minsmere reedbeds

A slideshow of some small but quite interesting things!

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Our walk in Tyrrels Wood was less pleasant as it was so very muddy and we were disappointed by the state it was in.  There was a quantity of litter in the wood, especially near the entrance and it was obvious that the wood is used by dog-walkers.  We had to watch where we walked!  In this country it is illegal to allow one’s dog to foul a public area and not clean up after it.  I am surprised that a large organisation like the Woodland Trust is happy to leave the wood in this condition.

The spotted leaves of Lords and Ladies/Jack-in-the-Pulpit (Arum maculatum) next to Dog’s Mercury (Mercurialis perennis)

Lesser Celandine (Ranunculus ficaria) also with Dog’s Mercury

Tyrrels Wood

An ancient coppice stool. This group of trees was once one tree but through repeated coppicing (cutting back the tree to near ground level to let new shoots re-grow) it has become a group of trees with a shared root system.

The bark patterns on this tree are interesting.

And now for my music selection!  A little trip down memory lane to the summer of 1978 when I was nearly 20 years old and fancy-free.

Thanks for visiting!

March Flowers in my Garden

Tags

Delft Blue hyacinths, flowers, Goldbrook, Hoxne, iris danfordiae, lesser celandine, Rip van Winkle daffodils, scillas, tautology

Looking at the village map of Hoxne that R picked up on Saturday, I see that the little river running through the village is called the Goldbrook Beck.  Another example of tautology.  A beautiful day today though much cooler than yesterday.  We have a strong NE breeze blowing which is drying my washing very well indeed.

While I’m posting I might as well add a couple of flower photos.

Lesser celandines growing in the tub containing my standard bay tree.

 

Iris danfordiae

 

The scillas have grown a little!

 

My very favourite hyacinth of all – a Delft Blue.  It isn’t easy to see with this photo, but the outside of the flowerlet buds and the centre of the flowerlets are a wonderful turquoise.  The outer part of the petals are a lovely clear blue which darkens with age to the purpley- blue of Delft pottery.  I think I like blue flowers best.

 

Rip van Winkle daffodils

 

And again

 

Tubs of tete a tete daffodils outside the house

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

March

Tags

bacon onion potato sauté, blackthorn, cattle, chickens, Coffee morning, common reeds, cooking, ditching, Dog's Mercury, electric fence, farmyard, good food, greylags, Italian alders, ivy, lesser celandine, Lords and Ladies, marble galls, narcissi, nature, phone box library, photography, primroses, quiz night, rookery, Rumburgh Church, sheep, snowdrops, St James South Elmham, St Margaret South Elmham, St Michaels South Elmham, stinging nettle, the Beck, trees

A wet start to the month.  R and I went off in the rain to the benefice coffee morning at the Rector’s house.  We could find nothing to bring with us this time and, as usual, I had not done any baking, so we just took ourselves and a little money.  We bought raffle tickets, a classical music c.d., a jar of the Rector’s home-made lenten three-fruit marmalade (i.e. without whisky) and a jar of plum jam.  After indulging in a bit of chit-chat and getting the local gossip (no raffle prizes this time!) we left to go shopping in Halesworth.  Boring groceries shop in the Co-Op and then, while R read the paper in the car, I walked in to town to see if I could find some flowers for the church.  I eventually found what I was looking for in the third place I visited – some really pretty multi-headed narcissi, some in yellow and some in a creamy-white.  The individual flowers very tiny and delicate;  I bought two bunches of each colour.

The rain was easing off a little by the time we got to Rumburgh church but the path to the church was very puddly and muddy.  The snowdrops were still looking good and the primroses were just starting to come out.  The churchyard will be a mass of wild flowers very soon.  We found a suitable vase in the cupboard and just put the poor flowers in water.  I cannot attempt anything more than this and even this made the flowers look as if ashamed to be where they were.  They all huddled in the middle of the vase and faced inwards and no matter what I did they twisted back and hid their faces.  I eventually gave up,  put the vase on a ledge and checked that the other flowers in the church were all o.k.

I went out to feed the birds later that afternoon after the rain had stopped and the sun had come out.  Something, probably a squirrel, had pulled the top off one of my fat block feeders and had removed and taken away a block that I had only put in the day before.  I mended the feeder, replaced the block with a new one and wired up the top to prevent it being pulled apart so easily again.  We shall see!  I took a couple of photos of the geese and some of next door’s ****** chickens in the garden again.

 

 

I discussed with E what she would like for her evening meal and we decided on one of her current favourites – fried bacon, potatoes and onions.  I added some diced eating apple as I thought that might go well with it.  E was of a different opinion!

 

R and I set off for the quiz at St James at 7.00pm.  We had become quite reluctant to leave our nice warm home and get into my very cold, damp car.  It was just 1 degree celsius outside and it took the whole journey to de-mist the windscreen.  I drove most of the way bending forward and peering through the only clear bit at the bottom.  Fortunately, we met no-one on the journey but the real danger is in the deep ditches at the sides of the road.

The quiz was great fun and the six of us on our team all know each other and get on well.  We eventually came second which was very pleasing.  R and I also won two prizes in the raffle.  The food provided by the village hall committee (I suppose) and cooked by two ladies from the village was really good.  A pork casserole or a vegetable bake with a baked potato and a little pot of butter for the first course and then a choice of four or five (I can’t remember how many) desserts with cream or custard for the second course.  This was followed by tea or coffee with a chocolate mint – all for £8.00 per person.  There was thick frost on the cars when we left just after 11.00pm.

A lovely bright morning and hardly any wind the next day.  We went to church at St Michael’s.  This is a very small church in the middle of fields and has only recently had electricity put in – only a couple of sockets though.  There is no electric light, I think, and no heating except for an enormous very old gas heater at the back of the church.  If they have evening services they have oil lamps which makes it look so lovely.  The lane is very narrow and there aren’t many places to park.  R squashed up as close as he could to the electric fence and had great difficulty in getting out of the car.  The fence might not have been switched on as there weren’t any animals in the field – we weren’t going to take any chances though!

 

 

By the time we had had lunch and washed up the sun had disappeared and the wind had got up again.  R and I went out for a walk in the lanes near our house.

There is still a lot of standing water about.  This water is as the base of a hedge on St Margaret’s common.

 

In the village of St Margaret South Elmham is the old phone box which they have converted into a mini library.

 

The rooks are busy in the rookery near the old rectory.

 

The geese who live at the old rectory were resting for a change!

 

The churchyard is full of pretty flowers.

 

Lots of common reeds in the ditches at the side of the lane all waving in the wind.

 

The tributary to the Beck at Froghall.

 

Some lovely silhouettes of trees on the skyline.

 

Blackthorn just starting to come out in the new hedge.

 

Marble galls.

 

The top of our lane.

 

The fields in St James have very few hedges.  It is very windswept here and very cold!

 

Primroses at the side of the lane.

 

And lesser celandines.

 

A lot of work has been done here at the bridge to dig out the ditch again and lay new drainage pipes.

 

A row of Italian Alders with catkins.  Not a very clear photo because of the wind and my lack of skill.

 

The farmyard with sheep wandering about freely and cattle in the barn feeding from their manger.

 

Our lane again – muddier now.

Even worse!

 

More primroses.

And these are ‘weeds’ in our garden.  All lush green plants – the arrowhead leaves of Lords and Ladies, ivy, dog’s mercury and stinging nettles.