This and That

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'The Company', art, Deer, Diary, drama, gardening, health, home improvements, Jane Austen, London, moles, Rain, Sense and Sensibility, snow, snowdrops, Suffolk, the Gospel of Mark, violets, weather, wildlife

This will be a post full of bits and pieces of news; just a catch-up post on the things we have been up to during the past month or so.  I apologise for the length of the post – feel free to skip past as much as you like!

Snowdrops and a few daffodil buds in a pot

We began January with heavy rain, as I mentioned in a former post, but the high waters gradually receded despite lots more rain during the month and we are now left with a few waterlogged fields, lots of full ditches and ponds and plenty of mud.  A storm in the middle of the month left us without power for fifteen and a half hours but we suffered no damage to our house and out-buildings for which we are very thankful. We have had a little sunshine, some mild, wet and windy weather and a few colder spells too.  Very changeable weather.  This week has been cold with some snow showers.  The following photos were taken on Tuesday at sunset on our way home from Norwich.

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A dusting of snow

My mother had another fault on her phone-line and we spent some few days trying to get it repaired – again.

Elinor’s lap-top developed a fault and had to be repaired.  She doesn’t like to be without it as she finds her phone inadequate for some of the things she likes to do on-line.  She borrowed my lap-top.

We now have Super-Fast Broadband – except it isn’t really super-fast but faster than it was, which is quite satisfactory.  The downside is we have a new thick cable attached to the house right next to our bedroom window which loops over our front garden to the pole in the lane.  We think it is dangling just a little too much and in the summer when it expands it may be low enough to snag the roofs of delivery vans.  Trying to get someone back to deal with this may prove difficult.

Sweet violet

We have had some gates fitted at the end of our driveway, which look fine.

We are arranging for the old conservatory (which we cannot use) to be knocked down and a new one put in its place.  This will be a very messy job and will take a few weeks to get done but we hope when it’s finished we will have a room which we will be able to use all year round.  One which isn’t too cold in winter, too hot in summer, doesn’t leak when it rains or drip condensation when it’s cold.  I need to move quite a few plants away from the flowerbed outside the conservatory and find a place to keep them while the work proceeds.  We will also need to find somewhere to store all the furniture in the living room for the duration!

Snowdrops and early crocuses under a crabapple tree

We have all had the usual visits to the dentist, doctor and hospital.  I was particularly pleased with my appointment at the Rheumatology Clinic.  I have been in remission for some while and my blood-test results have been good.  Because of this, I have been told I can stop taking one of my tablets.  I have been taking this one for eighteen years and it is thought I don’t need it any more.  It is also a tablet that can cause irreparable damage to the eyes and the longer it is taken the more likely it is that damage will occur.  I wonder how long I would have been left taking this medication if my blood-test results hadn’t been so good?  So far, after over three weeks without them I have noticed no return of pain and I feel fine!   If I remain in remission for another year I have been told I may be able to reduce the dosage of the medication I inject myself with each week.  I would love to be able to do that!

Molehills in the garden

Gardening can be quite difficult in the countryside as we humans are not the only ones who like flowers and shrubs.  Most of our visiting wildlife love them too – as food.  My favourite miniature iris started blooming at the end of January but the deer found them and have eaten all the flowers. A few of my other plants have been pruned severely by the deer and pecked by the pheasants.  The only answer is to cover everything with chicken wire which isn’t attractive and it’s such a bother to have to remove it each time I wish to work on a flowerbed and then remember to put it back again afterwards!  Despite my grumbling, I do feel lucky to live here and to be able to see all the wild creatures that visit us.  Gardening on a plot surrounded by fields is different from gardening in a town or village.  It is impossible to keep wildlife, including weeds like brambles, nettles and thistles, out of the garden.  We have to be more relaxed in our attitude but it is hard not to be disappointed when a flower that is looked forward to for eleven months is eaten before it blooms!  Before Christmas I was looking out of the window at dawn and saw a family of Muntjac deer in the garden a few metres away from me.  A female, a male and a tiny spotted-backed fawn about the size of a large cat.  The baby kept racing about and bouncing on all four legs at once.  As soon as it got near enough to her, the female proceeded to wash him which he tolerated for a while and then ran off again!

We all spent a day in London on the 25th January but I took no photographs.  It was a day for visiting bookshops as a treat for Elinor; she had recently celebrated her 21st birthday.  We had lunch in an Italian restaurant in Shaftesbury Avenue and when we had had enough of books we wandered down through Trafalgar Square to the Embankment to see how many monuments and statues we could see before catching the tube from Embankment Station back to Liverpool Street Station.  We were very fortunate with the weather which though cold, was dry and sunny.  All our trains ran to time and we had a wonderful day.

Richard and I have taken a short walk near home recently and all three of us have been to Minsmere for a walk.  I will post about these later.

Richard and I went with friends to see a one-man performance of St Mark’s Gospel in Wangford Church last Saturday evening.  The church was freezing cold, probably because it had had extensive building work done to it and the people from the village had only just finished the clean up that afternoon!  The performance was absolutely brilliant!  St Mark’s Gospel is the shortest of the gospels and was written at speed.  It is said that Mark recorded Jesus’ life using Saint Peter’s recollections of Him. It was performed by Ian Birkinshaw who was the narrator but he also acted all the characters in the gospel.  He had minimal props and costume accessories and I was very impressed by the way he used them.  For example, he was wearing a keffiyeh which one minute was round his neck, then with a little folding looked like a child in his arms and then a baby which he held over his shoulder.  Ian Birkinshaw’s performance conveyed the excitement about Jesus that is evident in the Gospel and his energetic recital which lasted over two hours was very impressive.  I cannot recommend this performance highly enough.  Here is his wordpress site.

As I have mentioned recently, Elinor, my younger daughter has been attending art classes in Norwich since September and has been enjoying them.  She has shown great improvement in her work and has become much more confident; she is managing her anxiety a little better.  She had been very disappointed last year when she failed to get onto a course which would have given her a qualification which she needs to get into art college.  She applied to a different college to have an interview for the same course and this time she was successful.  She will be starting college in September but instead of Norwich her new college is in Great Yarmouth on the coast.

Here are four examples of the work she has been producing recently.  Each of these pieces were completed in two and a half hours.

Portrait 

Painting

Portrait

Painted with twigs

My elder daughter, Alice belongs to a couple of drama groups in Sheffield where she lives and works.  Next week, one of the groups – The Company – will be staging a dramatisation of Jane Austen’s ‘Sense and Sensibility’.   Alice is playing the part of Mrs. Palmer.  The drama group has produced a few vignettes to celebrate St Valentine’s Day and the opening of the play next Wednesday.  I think you may be amused by the following, in which Mr and Mrs Palmer have been asked questions about their relationship.  Alice tells me that they were given the questions and were asked to improvise the answers in character.

The Company have posted a  number of these on their Facebook page and they are all amusing.  I particularly enjoyed Edward Ferrars’ contribution!

If any of you are in Sheffield next week I would heartily recommend you going along to see the play at the University of Sheffield’s Drama Studio in Glossop Road.  The performances are at 7.30pm Wednesday to Saturday.  Tickets can be bought on-line on the link I have provided or on the door.

Thanks for visiting!

Rain Almost Stops Play

Tags

good food, Hen Cloud, Meerbrook, Peak District, Rain, Ramshaw Rocks, The Lazy Trout, The Roaches, Tittesworth Water, views, walking

We woke on the fourth full day of our holiday to thick cloud and while we ate our breakfast we heard the first raindrops on the roof of our caravan.  We spent a little time tidying and cleaning the caravan and then drove into town to do some shopping in the supermarket.  It was very wet by the time we had finished so we were glad to get back and have a hot cup of coffee.  We had arranged to have a meal with Richard’s brother Chris and it was booked for 1.30 pm at ‘The Lazy Trout’ in Meerbrook, a village a few minutes drive away.  We set off at 1.15.

Photograph borrowed from the internet.

My brother-in-law arrived shortly after we did and we enjoyed an extremely pleasant meal in this very welcoming place.  If anyone is in the area I would heartily recommend the food – it is delicious!

We had thought we might have a walk round Tittesworth Water after our meal but the rain was still heavy so we returned to our caravan for hot drinks and a chat.  Chris stayed with us until 6.30 pm by which time the rain had stopped.  Richard and I decided not to waste a nice evening and so drove to Hen Cloud and did our once yearly clamber up to the top.

Looking towards Tittesworth Water from where we parked the car.

Looking over the wall towards The Roaches

Hen Cloud

Hen Cloud again

Looking East from halfway up the hill.  Ramshaw Rocks are on the left of the photo

Looking towards Ramshaw Rocks from even further up Hen Cloud

View down to the road and beyond to Tittesworth Water from the top of Hen Cloud. We noticed more bad weather approaching!

Definitely more rain on the way!

Threatening clouds

It still didn’t look too bad in this direction

We decided to get back to the car before the rain arrived.

One last look at the reservoir…

…and at the views from the top

We would have preferred to have stayed up at the top for much longer but the sensible thing to do was to get to the bottom before the rain caused the rocks to get slippery and the low clouds to lessen visibility.  We were surprised to see a group of young boys being taken climbing up the Roaches as we got to the bottom of the hill.  By this time it was about 8.00 pm and the thick cloud was making it very dark.

We were back at our caravan before the rain began again.

To be continued…

Thanks for visiting!

Wells-Next-the-Sea

Tags

beach, Norfolk, pine woods, Rain, sand, sea, Wells-Next-the-Sea

Wells-Next-the-Sea

 

Last summer we visited the seaside town of Wells-Next-the-Sea in north Norfolk.  It is a very attractive little town with plenty of narrow, winding lanes, pretty cottages, interesting shops and a lovely wide green surrounded by elegant Georgian houses.  The place is very dear to me as I spent many holidays here as a girl.  It gets very crowded nowadays during the high-season and there is nowhere to park if you arrive after mid-morning.

Unfortunately, we set off rather late and stopped in Fakenham on the way to have lunch.

Fakenham is a pleasant market town in Norfolk

The place where we had our lunch.

 

 

Wells has a harbour but the beach is a mile away from the town and is reached by a narrow road and paths. There is a high bank next to the road which was built about 150 years ago to consolidate the channel that connects the sea to the harbour and also, I presume, to act as a sea defence.  The paths are on the sea-wall.  During the summer months there is also a narrow-gauge railway that shuttles holiday-makers to and from the beach.

View from the top of the bank, across the tidal waterway (called ‘The Run’ I believe) that connects the harbour with the open sea, to the mudflats and saltmarsh beyond.

 

We decided to forego the delights of the town and so drove along the road to the beach car-park at Pinewoods.  We found nowhere to park (of course!) so left Alice and Elinor there with our belongings and drove back to the town where there was an overflow car-park next to the playing field.  We thought we might return to the beach on the little train but we had just missed one and there was a long wait for the next.  We walked along the sea wall in the strong sunshine.  It was very warm work.

Looking towards the sea in the distance

A poor photograph of Viper’s-bugloss (Echium vulgare) that was growing at the side of the path

 

 

 

We found the girls and shared out the bags and chairs and started to walk through the pine woods to the beach.  I remember playing in these woods with my brother and sister over forty years ago when it was wilder and there were fewer designated paths through the dunes.  Red squirrels were still to be found there in the early 70’s but they were under great threat and had died out by the mid 1970’s I believe.  Sadly, I never saw a live red squirrel only a dead one.  At intervals along the path there are steep slopes and steps up to the top of the dunes from where you suddenly see miles of sandy beach and the sea in the distance.

A lovely sandy beach where one can find pretty shells and where jelly-fish swim in the shallow warm-water inlets

I love to see the pine trees so close to the sea.

 

 

We walked some way across the sand in the direction of the sea.  The tide goes out for miles here but when it turns, it rolls in very quickly and many people get stranded on sandbanks every year by not heeding the tide and not listening out for the warning siren.

The beach huts here are on stilts

More beach huts

 

 

As seems to be what happens to us whenever we visit this beach, no sooner had we settled ourselves on the sand when the wind picked up and large clouds appeared.  I was glad of my hat and coat.

What is known as ‘an interesting sky’.

A bit of cloudy sky didn’t put people off their relentless march towards the distant sea.

It’s okay! That raincloud isn’t coming this way!

It looks quite nice over there.

People began to make their way back towards the woods.

This is me! I was glad of the hat and coat.

A yacht going out to sea. Notice the off-shore windmills in the distance. These days it is rare to find a place where you can look out to sea and not see windmills.

The sea was getting rougher

There are always fishermen on the beach

The visibility was getting worse.

A buoy

Wet sand

When we saw this we reluctantly started back towards the pinewoods.

It began raining just as we reached the woods and rained very heavily while we walked under the trees.  It stopped eventually and we walked back along the sea wall to the car.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cloud Chasing

Tags

Bertha, black bryony, blue flax, bread-making, clouds, clover, fields, fleabane, gates, grasses, great black slug, greenbottle, hen and chicks, Kestrel potatoes, marsh ragwort, phacelia, Rain, red bartsia, René Magritte, rice, the Beck, thunder, tub-thumping priest, walking, wild radish, willow, wind

I had hoped to be able to stay at home on Saturday as the weather was so nice.  However, when I took a loaf out of our breadmaker and saw that, for the second time in a row, the bread hadn’t risen very much I realised that one of two things had happened.  I knew that I hadn’t made a mistake when measuring out the ingredients or when setting the programme.  The problem was either a faulty batch of yeast or, even worse, a faulty breadmaker.  I went into Halesworth and bought a very nice looking loaf from the health food/delicatessen shop as well as some new yeast.  I had been experimenting with a different brand-name dried yeast and thought that that may have been the problem so I bought some of the old tried-and-tested yeast.  While in town I also got some more vegetables and a couple of newspapers – The Saturday Times so that R could do the crossword (most of the rest of the newspaper usually goes straight into the re-cycling bin) and a Beccles and Bungay Journal.  This had a very nice account of our Requiem Eucharist last Sunday with a photograph and also a double-page centre-spread featuring Dolly and her memories of living in a village which is doubly thankful, in that all its people going off to war in both the Great and the Second World War came back safely. As I drove home I noticed such wonderful clouds in the sky!  The wind was picking up already so I decided to trot back down the lane and photograph them before checking round the garden to make sure all was well battened down and tied up before the high winds that had been forecast arrived. One of my favourite artists is René Magritte who painted clouds like these.

La grande famille Series 1 Lithography by René Magritte

I also saw that one of next-door’s chickens had had some chicks and was taking them for a walk on the grass verge of the lane.

There are six chicks there somewhere!

R was mowing the grass when I got home and he also made sure everything was ready for the storm so I didn’t have to.  What a kind man! We had some very heavy rain and thunder over-night and while we were in church on Sunday morning the rain came on again with more thunder.  The Rector is currently having a well-deserved, two-week break from us so the service was taken by a retired clergyman who lives in our benefice and is a great friend of ours.  The bible readings for the day were very apt – the earthquake, wind and fire from which God was absent and then the quiet whisper that was God, and the story of the disciples being tossed about in the boat on the lake and Jesus walking on water to join them and calming the storm.  I was waiting for a stormy sermon and got one though not quite the one I expected.  In fact, we all got a lecture about the current terrible situation in Gaza.  We were told that a lot of what is going on there was our (the British) fault and that we cannot wash our hands of it.  The priest even struck the edge of the pulpit with his hand!  Twice!  Our Rector might grumble and nag but I cannot remember him ever beating up the pulpit during a sermon! I think we have been lucky and haven’t had such bad weather as others around the country.  The rain didn’t last that long really and by mid afternoon the sun was coming out.  It was, and still is very blustery but the wind hasn’t been as damaging as we thought it would be.  We have lost a few apples and pears from our trees and some of the plants look a little sorry for themselves but on the whole, nothing to worry about. Once we saw that the rain had stopped, R and I decided to go out for a walk.  We chose one of our walks across the fields.

Evidence of recent rainfall

Before we had walked more than a few steps along the path we saw such a mass of fleabane!

Pulicaria dysenterica – Common Fleabane

‘Pulicaria’ refers to the plant’s power against fleas (pulex = Latin for flea) and ‘dysenterica’ recalls a time when fleabane was used as a medicine against dysentery.  When dried and burned, the leaves of fleabane were said to give off a vapour which drove fleas away so the plant was highly prized when houses were plagued with them.  The plants were used in an unburned state as an insecticide too.  Culpeper, the 17th century herbalist, didn’t think much of the flower itself – ‘an ill-looking weed’, ‘the flowers are a dirty yellow’, but he commended its effectiveness against insects.  ‘The smell is supposed delightful to insects and the juice destructive to them, for they never leave it til the season of their deaths’. I believe I have photographed this gate before.  It is in an even worse state than the last time we were here.

Something has been eating this clover in a crimping style.

R and I were quite surprised to see that the normally fallow field was full of plants and flowers.  We haven’t been this way for some weeks.

Wild flower seeds appear to have been sown here – not all native.

The purple flower, Phacelia tanacetifolia or scorpion weed, is often grown as a green compost but is dug in before it flowers.  It is also grown as a butterfly and insect magnet as the flowers are full of nectar.  It is not a native plant.  I spotted all sorts of plants that I recognised, for example…

Blue flax

I think this may be wild radish

It also appeared as if a trial crop had been planted here.  We did not recognise it at all.  After some research I have decided that it may be rice.  The kind of rice – arborio – that is grown in northern Italy.

Is this rice?

I think it looks very much like it.  Can anyone confirm this for me, please? Near to the hedge we found some red bartsia but my photo is very poor as you will see. I also found some ragwort which I think may be marsh ragwort. We walked past another field of dried peas and continued to admire the enormous clouds on the horizon. We were now approaching the Beck and we could hear all the ditches and little streams that join it gurgling and bubbling. We saw this Great Black Slug in the damp grass.

The Beck was flowing very fast

This willow has galls on it and one of its leaves is very distorted

We decided to walk a little further to the top of the hill and look at the view from there.

Greenbottle flies develop a coppery tinge with age

One of our favourite views

The road junction at the top of the hill

After all the humid weather recently it was lovely at the top of the hill with the strong wind blowing.     It looked as if we might have some more rain so we headed back down the hill. On the way I noticed some shiny Black Bryony leaves in the hedgerow. Another view of a field, a gate and some clouds.   The wind and rain had made patterns with the dried grasses. We got home and I started preparing the evening meal.  I used some of our home-grown Kestrel potatoes which are very tasty indeed.

Purple patterned potatoes

In fact, the clouds passed us by without shedding a drop of rain.  The skies cleared by nightfall and we were able to see the enormous full moon as it rose and then a couple of shooting stars as well.  A beautiful end to the weekend.

Water, Water Everywhere.

Tags

Bell Inn, bird feeding, Broads, Chandlery, dogwood, Fritton, Fritton Decoy, Great Yarmouth, grey squirrel, Haddiscoe, pill box, Rain, St Olaves, Toft Monks, Waveney, windmill, Yare, yellow iris

We have had a very wet day indeed today.  This is our pond this afternoon with rain-drops stippling its surface.  I spent most of the morning away from home visiting the surgery then shopping in Halesworth and then in Bungay.  This afternoon was spent doing household chores and then getting soaked to the skin in the garden.  I have planted some runner beans for my mother.  She said she wanted ten plants so I planted ten in pots a week ago and nine have come up.  This afternoon I planted three more which will give her a couple of spares in case she gets slug damage after planting out.  I then went round the garden checking on the bird feeders.  I have been cleaning and disinfecting all the feeders during the past week; waiting until each one empties and then bringing it in.  In that way I don’t have too many to do in one go and the birds still have food to eat outside.  I have twelve feeders around the garden as well as a couple of bird tables and a ground feeder.  The birds are very hungry and the food is disappearing extremely fast.  The feeders have to be heavy-duty ones as our garden is quite exposed and the wind is strong enough to blow them down very often.  The rooks also cause damage by swinging on the feeders and shaking the seed out for their friends waiting below.  In this rainy weather they cover the feeders with thick mud off their feet too.  Squirrels are a real nuisance and can pull a feeder apart very quickly.  I always use metal, never plastic, feeders now and try to make it difficult for the squirrel by putting extra wire round the lids and attaching them more securely.  I always regret this when I have to re-fill the feeders and especially when I have to take them  apart for cleaning as it takes so long to do.  I also saw a mouse in one of my squirrel-proof feeders the other day.  When I went out this afternoon I found two of my peanut feeders had been taken apart and all the peanuts eaten.  One part of one of the feeders is missing so I’m glad I ordered a new one at the weekend.

 

A blurred picture of my squirrel visitor. Wind and rain didn’t help with the clarity of the photo.

I managed to take a couple more photos before going indoors to change out of my wet clothes.

Another name for the yellow flag iris is the Sword Flag as its leaves are shaped like a sword and are also sharp enough to cut you.

The Dogwood is about to flower.  New stems are dark red and many people cut dogwood back hard just to get the bright coloured stems in early spring.  The dogwood’s leaves change to a rich claret in the autumn and are one of the first trees to change colour.  The berries are a shiny black and are very bitter.  It is called ‘Dog’ wood because ‘dags’ used to be made from its wood.  Dags are butcher’s skewers.

Last week E not only had to go to the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital on Friday but she also had to go to the Northgate Hospital in Great Yarmouth on Wednesday.  As R was off work all week he kindly offered to drive us there.  It was one of those grey, fairly still days – not cold but not particularly warm either.  The route we take goes through a couple of villages with Viking names – Toft Monks (Toft = curtilage or homestead in old Scandinavian.  It was known as Toft when the Domesday Book was written, only getting the Monks bit when the village was taken into the possession of the Norman Abbey of Préaux in the 12thC) – Haddiscoe (wood of a man called Haddr or Haddi).  We then go over a very high bridge spanning not only the River Waveney but also a canal cut from here to Reedham a village on the River Yare a little to the north.  This is the start of the Norfolk Broads, a large area of marshy reedbeds intersected by canals, rivers and broads (lakes).  A half mile further on is another little bridge which only allows one lane of traffic over it.  This is at St Olaves, named after the priory that was here.

We then drove through Fritton which has a Country Park with leisure activities – boating, fishing, walking.   Also a horse and donkey sanctuary called Redwings.  It was a popular place to visit by wild fowlers – people who enjoyed shooting ducks and other water birds.  The pub is called the Decoy and the water here, which is a tributary to the Waveney, is called the Fritton Decoy.

We got to Great Yarmouth and E saw her specialist. We then went home.  Because I wasn’t driving I was able to look about me as we drove along.  Great Yarmouth is not a pretty town.  It has a beach, a dock area and associated industries but it is also very run-down and there is high unemployment and poverty here.  We saw an apologetic bus.  A very rare creature.

One thing I did notice while we were queuing at traffic lights before crossing over the bridge over Breydon Water was this building below.

It was enormous with a thatched roof and an attractive weather-vane.  I don’t know what it is/was and need to find out somehow.  There is a blue plaque next to those great doors that will give a clue.  The iron railings on the bridge are quite nice too.

We decided to stop at St Olaves to look at the Fritton Decoy and the buildings there.

A windmill at the side of the water.

The Chandlery sells everything you might need on your boat while travelling on the Broads or down any of the rivers and out to sea.  You can also hire boats and equipment here.

The ancient Bell Inn with its beautiful brickwork on the opposite side of the road to the Chandlery.

The garden at the back of the inn.

A view of the Fritton Decoy and the boats moored there.

The building in this yard is a Pill Box and is another relic from the Second World War.  This one has had a shed built on the top of it at some stage.  Pill boxes are dug-in guard posts with loopholes through which to fire weapons.  They were called Pill Boxes because they looked like old-fashioned pill boxes!  According to the website I checked everything against they had a ‘trenchfiring step to protect against small arms fire and grenades and were raised to improve the field of fire’.  Well, there you are; now you know.  About 28,000 pill boxes and other hardened field fortifications were constructed in 1940 as part of British anti-invasion preparations of World War 2 and about 6,500 still survive.  There is one on the edge of the field in Mill Lane near us.  It is still known as the Searchlight because of the searchlight that was used there during the war.  East Anglia was full of airfields during the war – RAF and USAF – so there was always the danger of bombing raids.  The airfield runways are still marked out in the middle of farms and common land.

I’ll end this post with a view over the marshes at St Olaves.

 

The Sky at Night

Tags

clouds, evening, Rain, rainbow, sunset, sunshine

The following photos are ones I took this evening.  We have had a cloudy day today but much better than forecast because the predicted rain didn’t come until late afternoon and then it was fairly light and patchy.  It is now 10.30 at night and I can hear that the rain has now become much heavier and we have had a little thunder too.

A Rainbow.

 

A Sunset.

The rainbow and sunset happened concurrently so you must imagine me photographing the rainbow at the front of the house and then running to the back of the house to take photos of the sunset.  I was upstairs and downstairs and outside too so I have had plenty of exercise.

A Wet Day

Tags

ash die-back, ash tree, calendula, clouds, collared dove, Eye, lupin, moon, Rain, Rumburgh, St Chrysostom's prayer, St Michael and All Saints and St Felix church, St Peter and St Paul's church, yellow iris

The past couple of days have been fairly busy doing mainly mundane chores.  Fortunately, I am feeling much better and have regained what little energy I usually have.

View from our front door on Sunday after one of many showers

I took Mum to church again on Sunday morning.  A windy day with lots of heavy showers.  Her church is currently full of scaffolding and difficult to get around.  Quite a few years ago they bought a new second-hand organ at a bargain price (still many thousands of pounds I believe).   They took out their old one and sold it on but before they could put in the new one somebody thought it might be a good idea to make a Parish Room with a kitchen and toilets too.   This could be done more easily without the organ being in place.  The church is quite a wealthy one but even so, some time was spent fund-raising and then all the architects reports, and surveyors reports and moving of tombs etc took even more time.  Bits of organ pipe and casing were handed out to all and sundry to look after at home as there was no-where to store the new organ in the church.  All money raised was spent on the Parish Room and the church had to make do with a little electric organ.  At last the Parish Room was finished and everyone was pleased with the result.  Saving up for the installation of the organ was resumed and was going very well until the boiler broke down and had to be replaced.  Fortunately, some very generous parishioner kindly paid for a new boiler for the church.  At last, a few weeks ago the installation of the organ began and should be completed in time for the arrival of their new priest in the Autumn.  When I got to church with Mum on Sunday even more scaffolding had been erected as they had decided to investigate a large damp patch that had appeared above the Rood Screen.  They also have a Doom painting up there (covered with whitewash) which they want to look at to see that it isn’t deteriorating too much.

I had lunch when I got home and then spent a quiet afternoon reading, checking e-mails, feeding the birds and preparing the vegetables for our evening meal.  Our church had an Evening Prayer service at 6.30pm and R and I went along at 5.45pm to get everything ready.  It is fortunate that the lovely prayer of St Chrysostom is used during Morning and Evening Prayer, because if it wasn’t one might be tempted to wonder if there was much point in having the service.  There were only five of us there including poor Maurice who had prepared a very thought-provoking homily and led the service so well.

‘Almighty God, who hast given us grace at this time with one accord to make our common supplications unto thee; and dost promise that when two or three are gathered together in thy Name thou wilt grant their requests…’

Monday was another showery day with a few rumbles of thunder as well.  I did a lot of supermarket shopping and washing and other necessary jobs around the house.  I took a few photographs in the garden in-between the showers.

The tallest tree here is a lovely Ash tree. It upsets me to think that it probably will be dead in ten years time because of Ash die-back disease

The lane in front of our house is looking particularly green at the moment.

A lupin in R’s flower-bed

Calendula/Pot Marigold in R’s flowerbed

Yellow Iris in bud by the pond

You can tell by the Collared Doves’ blurred feet that it was moving fast and I had difficulty keeping up!

The sky gradually got cloudier and more stormy-looking as the day progressed.

 

 

 

 

Living in the (fairly) flatlands of East Anglia you can always see what the weather’s going to be like before it gets to you.

This is a plane from one of the local air bases

I was glad I wasn’t flying before the storm.

I got indoors just in time.

(If anyone is wondering why there is a brick on top of the cage over the ground bird feeder, it is to try to stop squirrels lifting up the lid and eating all the bird seed.)

By dusk the rain had stopped and the moon had risen.

 

 

Gardening and Feeding Birds

Tags

Mark Cocker 'Crow Country', Norwich Cathedral, Rain, rooks, weeding, wild birds

A beautiful red sunrise this morning and some frost on the grass.  We had a lot of heavy rain yesterday evening with high winds and thunder and lightening but during the night the sky cleared and the wind dropped.  Yesterday afternoon I managed to work in the garden for a few hours.  There has been so little cold weather that the weeds are growing very well and so I decided to try to clear the worst affected flower bed.  It was hard going as the soil in our garden is clay over chalk and flint and with all the rain we have had the soil had become very sticky mud.  It is not recommended that work is done with the ground so wet but if I had left the weeds, mainly red dead-nettle and thistles, they would have totally engulfed all the miniature bulbs coming up.  I wasn’t able to finish the whole bed before it got dark and began to rain but most was done and I was quite pleased.

This morning we decided to go to Norwich Cathedral and have lunch in the city.  The drive was pleasant (especially as R drove not me!) and I noticed all the catkins on the trees and in the hedges.  The sky was very overcast as more rain was forecast but the roads were fairly empty and we quickly found somewhere to park.  E loves coming with us to the cathedral:  she enjoys listening to the choir and the wonderful organ playing and also being part of a large congregation.  We left the cathedral in pouring rain.  Only then did R realise he’d left his hat in the car and didn’t have his umbrella.  E had her umbrella but the wind kept blowing it inside-out.  We went straight to the café where we had some lunch and then did a little shopping.  I left E in Waterstones where she chose some books to buy with some of her birthday money, and went to buy her a new umbrella, some re-proofing spray and a couple of things from the chemist.  R went to buy himself some underclothes and a hat!

We got home at about 2pm and had a hot drink.  The rain eased off soon afterwards so I went out to feed the birds.  The amount of black sunflower seeds I use is amazing.  I have two sunflower feeders the larger of which is about 20″ tall and both need refilling every day.  I know that a lot of the seeds are taken by rooks and I haven’t yet found a way to deter them.  I admire them as they are very intelligent birds but when they descend on the garden in large numbers they eat most of the contents of a feeder in a very short space of time and that becomes expensive.  I have a squirrel deterrent on the larger feeder which is weight sensitive.  When it detects something heavy on the feeder an alarm sounds and then the feeder spins round quickly for a few seconds.  This has put the squirrels off but not the rooks!  I think they enjoy the challenge and seem to play on it.  One rook hangs on the feeder as it spins round and shovels out the seeds to friends waiting on the ground below.  Most infuriating!  A couple of years ago I was becoming almost bitter about this so I read the book by Mark Cocker called ‘Crow Country’.  He used to live not far from here and studied the local corvids as well as those in other parts of the country.  His book taught me to understand them and even to like them!  I now have to limit the amount of food I put out (to save my pocket) and if I think the rooks have been on the feeder too long I go out and shoo them away.  (They then wait for me to go out then gorge themselves until I return!).  Other unwelcome guests are next-door’s free-range chickens free-ranging in our garden and of course, the moles, the rats, the deer, the rabbits, the pheasants which peck off and discard! all buds, growing tips etc. of all the plants in the garden, other people’s cats and dogs and so on.
  It is now time to cook the evening meal.   

 

 

 

Winter Weather

Tags

Beccles, Bungay, hail, Rain, sleet, wind

Not as windy overnight as forecast but very heavy rain about 8 o’clock in the morning. Fortunately this didn’t last long and by nine o’clock the sky was clearing and the rest of the morning was quite beautiful. I had some shopping to do in Beccles, a town about eleven miles away. Not much traffic on the road so I got there quite quickly. By the time I had finished my shopping the sky had clouded over and the wind had picked up again. I really enjoy driving on the road between Beccles and Bungay. It usually doesn’t have much traffic on it so I travel at about 50 or 60 mph. The road rises and falls and the views from the tops of the hills down into and across the Waveney Valley are good. Today, the clouds were purple-black and I could see the mist of falling rain in the distance. It began to thunder and lighten and I drove into heavy rain which quickly changed to sleet and hail. The roads in Bungay had a lot of surface water on them and then as I got on to the hill out of the town I had to drive on roads covered in a layer of hail stones which were very slippery. The temperature dropped from 9 degrees C to 4 degrees in just a few minutes. The afternoon continued cold and showery but at nightfall the sky cleared and a new moon and stars appeared in the sky. Quite a windy evening.