Snowbound

Tags

hazel catkins, icicles, lichen, snow, Suffolk, witch-hazel

Hazel catkins (Corylus avellana)

With the bad weather keeping us indoors I find I have had time to catch up with reading my e-mails and my friends’ posts and to write another one of my own.

Before the snow arrived I made another attempt at photographing our hazel catkins and found a few female flowers as well.

Hazel catkins

My current camera is not at all good at close-ups or macro shots and so this is the best I can do.

Another attempt at the lichen on the Horse-chestnut tree

I think I am going to have to give this up!

I rather like these lichens but again, they are not in focus.

Yet more blurred lichen!

On Monday we had snow showers all day.  Stronger spells of sunshine at midday melted all that had fallen on the driveway and paths but didn’t shift the snow on the flowerbeds and grass.  Richard took Elinor to Norwich for her acupuncture appointment and found that there had been no snow there at all.  The fountain outside the hotel where Elinor has her acupuncture was spectacularly frozen.

Frozen fountain

I had a very quick walk round the house to see that all was well.  It was much too cold to go any further.

I liked these mini icicles on the tool-shed

Witch-hazel flowers dusted by snow

This was their swan-song; they are now shrivelled and frozen.

I looked down the garden. The small pond was completely frozen.

I looked over the hedge to the field beyond.

I was chilled now so I made my way back to the front door passing the bell on the way.

Poor cockerel! He’s looking a little worse for wear!

We had a lot of snow on Tuesday night and on Wednesday morning I had to phone my mother to cancel our usual shopping trip.  She was fine and had all she needed for the time being but gave me a short list of things she would like fairly soon.

There had been no wind overnight and snow was heaped on telephone wires and windowsills and every tiny branch and twig.

You can see our new gates at the end of the drive in this photo. Richard was able to paint them last week.

In the photo you can see the dangling cable that provides us with our broadband!

We have stayed at home while the winds have picked up and blown most of the snow from the trees and caused deep drifts everywhere.  The roads to the other villages and our local towns are all blocked.  The depth of the snow in the garden has reduced, not from melting but by being scoured away.  We are hoping that we will be able to get to town later this morning before the next snow arrives.  We need to buy supplies and collect medication for me and for Mum.  Our gas delivery hasn’t arrived and we have nearly run out.  I don’t fancy a few days without central heating!  We have turned the thermostat down and the water heater off to conserve power.

The joys of living in the countryside!

My music selection today is ‘Song to the Moon’ from Dvorak’s opera Rusalka sung by (I believe) Lucia Popp.  I chose this because we have a full moon today.

Thanks for visiting!

This and That

Tags

'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.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

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!

Happy New Year!

Tags

candlelight, carol service, Christmas, garden, greylag, midnight mass, New Year, snow, Suffolk

Taken at dawn on 12th December

We had a few days of cold and snow in mid-December but the year ended with much milder temperatures, wind and lots of rain.  All our local rivers have burst their banks and everywhere is wet and muddy.

‘Evereste’ crabapple tree in the snow

Crabapples

Once the apples had been frosted it took no time at all for the blackbirds to eat all the fruit on the tree!  The deer helped themselves to the apples on the lower branches.

Female Muntjac deer

2nd Sunday in Advent

We had a Sunday service at our church at Rumburgh on 10th December.  The day started with heavy rain but as we got the church ready for the service the rain turned first to sleet and then to snow.  The Archdeacon arrived to take our service, his cloak covered in snow.  He preached and played the organ too but sadly, not many of our mainly elderly congregation turned up.

A snowy churchyard

Our damp, but festive church porch

Snow covers a multitude of sins and our garden looked almost picturesque!

The view from our front door

Our larger pond. This was before the rain added a number of inches to its depth

We have also had all the willow saplings and brambles on the little island cut down since this photograph was taken.  The greylags should find it easier to make their nest there in the spring.

Here is a female greylag with her goslings in our garden a couple of years ago

The path round the pond

Looking across the field from our garden

After the sun had risen I took this picture from an upstairs window

We haven’t had much snow in the last couple of years and we don’t know if we will get any more this winter either.  This might be all we get!

We held a carol service at our church on 20th December.

I took this photo a while before the service began.

Our Christmas tree at church

The service was taken by Maurice our hard-working Elder who has taken on most of the admin duties for the benefice since we have been vicarless.  We heard the Christmas story in some readings from the Bible and we also listened to a few seasonal poems.  We sang lots of carols and then ate sausage rolls, cheese straws, cake and mince pies and drank sherry or fruit juice.

Kneeler at church

Kneeler at church

 

Richard, Elinor and I went to Midnight Mass at South Elmham St Peter’s church on Christmas Eve and we spent a peaceful Christmas at home, my mother visiting us for lunch and for the afternoon on Christmas Day and for an evening buffet meal on Boxing Day.

Christmas tree decorations

  Alice stayed in Sheffield for Christmas but came to visit us for a couple of days, arriving on the 28th December.  It was lovely to have her with us!

I took this photo with my phone on Boxing Day during our walk in the late afternoon

We don’t party on New Year’s Eve but stay at home quietly.  I had taken my mother to her church in the morning while Richard went to Ilketshall St John’s church in our benefice.  The roads were all awash but the rain held off for most of the day.  Richard, Elinor and I went to Southwold in the afternoon to walk by the sea.  We parked by the pier and walked along the front to the far end of the town where we bought some chips.  We walked back to the car as it got dark and came home again.  A pleasing end to the year.  No photos from Southwold as I left my camera at home.

Happy New Year, everyone!

Slightly Newer News!

Tags

bird-scare cannons, Christmas box, crocus, Cymbidium orchids, dandelion, Diary, Germander Speedwell, Homersfield church, mallards, miniature iris, Periwinkle, primroses, snow, snowdrops, St Mary's church Homersfield, Suffolk, sweet violets, walking, winter-flowering honeysuckle

We had a dusting of snow five weeks ago

This is the view from our spare bedroom window.  We had had a few days of snow showers but nothing had settled until we woke on the Sunday morning to this.  Up until a few years ago we got snow every winter, sometimes a lot of snow; but not now.

Homersfield church is dedicated to St Mary

Richard and I went to church together that Sunday.

Here he is, looking very Russian!

Homersfield church is beautifully situated on a bluff above the River Waveney with its water meadows and marshes.  My favourite approach to it is up a track through woodland.

The churchyard. Beyond the trees the land drops away steeply.

Homersfield churchyard looking towards the woodland where we park our car.

The woodland with snowdrops (Galanthus nivalis)

Snowdrops

The snow had all gone by the end of the day and the beginning of the following week was mild and sunny.

Richard and I went out for a short walk down the lane.  He can’t walk too far as yet so we weren’t able to do our usual circuit route but it was good to be out together.

We have been listening to bird-scaring cannons going off at intervals every day, from dawn til dusk since the middle of autumn. Wood pigeons do considerable damage to leafy crops such as oil-seed rape.

Bare trees and a see-through hedge

Further up the lane was the sheltered bank of a ditch on which I found a number of tiny plants.  They had begun flowering in the milder weather we had had that week.

Primrose (Primula vulgaris) plants

Primrose.  This is a ‘thrum-eyed’ primrose flower.  If you look at the centre of the flower you see its long stamens, the short stigma is hidden below.  A ‘pin-eyed’ primrose has a long stigma visible and its short stamens are concealed.  I will see if I can find a ‘pin-eye’ flower so you can compare the two.

Germander Speedwell (Veronica chamaedrys)

Dandelion (Taraxacum agg.)

Red Dead-nettle (Lamium purpureum)

An oak tree in a hedgerow. A dead branch has broken and is dangling from the tree.  You cannot see it in this photo but a single track road runs this side of the hedge.

The signpost at the end of the lane

Field view

Field view

We stood for a while and looked across the fields; we tried to walk a little further towards the village of St James but Richard soon knew he would be too tired if he went any further.  We turned for home.

Our muddy lane

Our muddy lane

Our muddy lane

For many months of the year our lane is covered with a thick layer of mud.  Our cars are perpetually filthy and walking is a messy business!

Mallards (Anas platyrhynchos) on our pond.

I know it is spring once I start to see pairs of Mallards on our pond! We have also been visited by our Graylag geese friends and yet again we realise we have failed to clear the the willow and bramble scrub off the island they like to nest on.

I was pleased that my Cymbidium orchids flowered from Christmas until just a week ago.

They had produced seven spikes of flowers altogether, which is the best ever!

Here is a slideshow of the flowers in bloom in my garden during February.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

My music choice is ‘Laudate Dominum’ by Mozart and sung by Emma Kirkby.  I have been fortunate to have heard Emma Kirkby sing on two occasions, in recitals held at the church in my mother’s village.

Thanks for visiting!

A Week of Winter

Tags

Aram Khachaturian, buds, flowers, frost, hoarfrost, ice, Masquerade Suite, moss, music, snow, winter

After the warmest December on record and a mild New Year we have, at last, had a little cold winter weather.  Some of the flowers that were blooming in the mild weather have been frosted and turned brown. Others don’t seem to have been bothered by the frost and ice and have continued to flower.

The first ice starting to form on the big pond

We have snowdrops in the garden that don’t look anywhere near being ready to flower but some in tubs have buds that may open in a couple of days.  Strangely, a golden crocus which usually flowers in March has appeared in the grass near the end of the drive.   The garden is unusually colourful for this time of year.

Slightly stunted pink Hyacinths.

Grape Hyacinths.

Miniature iris

The ‘sticky-buds’ are swelling on the Horse Chestnut tree.

Those four photos were taken the morning after a severe gale when lots of rain, then sleet and wet snow fell.  The snow settled for a while but most of it disappeared the next day when the sun came out.  The wind had blown the snow almost horizontally and when I went out the following morning I saw walls and tree trunks with snow and ice stuck to them but hardly any snow on the ground.

Small amount of ice on an apple tree.

Melting ice on a window sill

It was a beautiful day

The water-level in the pond has risen quite a lot recently but not as much as we’d expected. Probably ditch clearing and drainage works done locally have meant less water entering our garden. The reeds and brambles need to be cut back here!

Colourful fungi on a dead log.

Even the pond at the front of the house had some ice on it

We continued to get hard frosts at night and then a light sprinkling of beautiful powdery snow on Saturday night.

The big pond

I like the patterns the snow made on the icy pond

We had a hoarfrost yesterday morning but the sun soon came out and the frost melted.  I wish I could have got outside earlier!

Pyracantha leaves

Cherry tree buds

Winter-flowering Honeysuckle

Thyme

Marjoram/Oregano

The moss and lichen garden on top of the brick pillar at the end of the drive

A close-up of the moss with its frosted capsules

Crabapples.

I am pleased we have had a few frosts because the birds will only eat the crabapples once they have been frosted.

Richard went to a PCC (Parochial Church Council) meeting on Wednesday evening and came home with two pieces of good news.  The first is that we are a stage nearer to getting the screen put in between the Tower Room and the main body of the church at Rumburgh and the second is that when our Rector retires in 2017 we will (eventually) be getting a replacement for him.  For some time now, we have thought that we would have to do without a priest when Richard (the Rector) goes.  We have a large but sparsely populated benefice and even though we would have tried to keep things going on our own and with the help of retired clergy and the priest from our neighbouring benefice, it would have been very difficult and might have meant that some, at least, of the churches would have had to close.  We will have to put up with at least a year’s interregnum before the replacement priest arrives but if we know that we will get a Rector eventually we will cope better.

The piece of music today is a great favourite of mine and very romantic in style.  It is quite long (just over 16 minutes) but is in five short movements so you don’t have to listen to it all in one go!  This music makes me happy – I really don’t think anyone could help being cheered by it!  It goes from a fast ‘Waltz’ to a very romantic interlude – ‘Nocturne’; then to another fast movement – ‘Mazurka’ followed by a slower ‘Romance’.  The piece ends with a ‘Galop’.  It was originally written in 1941 by Aram Khachaturian as incidental music for a new production of a play called ‘Masquerade’ by the Russian poet and playwright Michail Lermontov.  The satirical-romantic play was written in 1835  and has a similar storyline to ‘Othello’.  The run in 1941 had to be cut short because of the invasion of the USSR by Germany.  Khachaturian later (in 1944) turned the incidental music into a Suite.

 

Thanks for visiting!

 

November

Tags

Autumn plants, berries, church going, Diary, Don Pasquale by Donizetti, family, flowers, garden work, Glyndebourne Touring Company, house repairs, leaf colour, Open Space Theatre Company, snow, St Michael and All Saints and St Felix church, Suffolk, Uncle Vanya by Chekhov, weather

Red Christmas Cactus

Salmon Christmas Cactus

My point-and-shoot camera stopped working and we didn’t think there was much point in taking it to be repaired.  A replacement probably costs what the repair would have cost – if it could have been repaired – so we ordered a replacement which arrived yesterday. Richard kindly said I could borrow his small camera while we waited for the replacement, but I never used it.  There haven’t been many opportunities for photography during the past week and the camera only took a couple of days to arrive.

Acer leaves at the beginning of November

After a chilly week or so in October, the weather this month has been fairly warm for the time of year.  We have also had a fair amount of rain.  I have managed to do a little garden-tidying, though as usual, not as much as I need to do or as I would have liked!  There may be a few more days this year when I can finish off the work so I am not too worried.  We had a couple of storms with high winds last week which ripped most of the leaves from the trees and Saturday was cold with wintry showers.

Mahonia this November

Mahonia flowers

We had a gardener/landscaper and his assistant come to do a few jobs that Richard needed help with.  Almost all our hedges have been cut and tidied by them and the front ditch has been strimmed.  The hedges between us and our neighbours on either side of us have been left for now and will be done at a later date.  Both of those hedges (like the front one) are on the far side of deep ditches which are fast filling with very cold water and are difficult to do.

Copper Beech at the beginning of November

Copper Beech in the sun in the middle of the month

Another job the gardener did was to dismantle our old summerhouse and extend the concrete pad on which it stood.  When I say ‘dismantle’ I use the word quite loosely as all he did was lean on it and it fell down.  With the winds that blew last week it probably would have fallen down without anyone’s help.  Richard is still deciding which summerhouse to buy to replace the old one.  We will be able to keep a few things in it that are needed for that end of the garden and Richard will be able to use it as a little home-from-home – a place to escape the hurly-burly of life in the house – a ‘shed’ with a view (of our big pond).  I am sure a comfy chair and coffee-making apparatus will be making their way down the garden and the bell on the wall of the house will be put to good use when summoning him for meals!

Spindle berries beginning to split

Spindle berries

We got a couple of quotes from local replacement-window firms and have made our choice.  The work to replace almost all the windows in the house, both garage doors and the back door and window in the garage will be done in January.  I just know the weather will be freezing cold when the work’s done and I will have a miserable time of it!  However, it will be worth it in the end as the house will eventually be considerably warmer and our heating bills will be much reduced.

The path round our big pond earlier this month while we still had some leaves on the trees

A new reed that has appeared next to our large pond this year

Richard spent a couple of days staying with an old friend in Manchester a few weeks ago.  His friend had to retire early through ill health (heart attack) but is much better now and is enjoying not going to work.  Richard came home after a very pleasant break much happier about his own retirement.

Lots of little bracket fungi found on a dead branch

Richard and I went to the Rectory coffee morning at the beginning of the month and enjoyed seeing all our friends from church.  We came home with cakes, pains aux raisins, marmalade and a book – no prizes in the raffle this time.  This month we also went to the Remembrance Sunday service at St James’ church which was quite moving.  Representatives from all the villages in the benefice read out the names of all the people who lost their lives in some of the wars we have taken part in – the two World Wars as well as the Korean and the Boer Wars.  The American airmen who lost their lives during WW2 and who were stationed at Flixton airfield were also mentioned.

Crabapple ‘Evereste’ covered in fruit . This photo also shows part of the front hedge and ditch before we had them both trimmed and tidied.

Alice came home the Saturday before last and stayed until the following Tuesday.  This was only the second time she has been able to visit this year but we hope to see her at Christmas as well which will be fun!  Mum came to lunch that Sunday and she enjoyed chatting with Alice and catching up with her news.

The church of St Michael and All Angels

The sundial on St Michael’s wall

Some of the sheep in the field next to the church.

(The three photos above were all taken with my new camera.  I think I will need to adjust the settings to get clearer pictures.)

Richard and I had been to the 9.30 Morning Prayer service at St Michael’s church the Sunday before last. Maurice, one of our Benefice Elders, took the service and spoke about St Edmund, Suffolk’s Patron Saint whose feast day is the 20th of November.  I had been due to take Mum to her church that day but couldn’t because of lunch-cooking duties.  Instead, I arranged to take Mum to church this Sunday just gone.  It was very icy with snow still on the ground in the morning and we assumed that it would be as bad at Mum’s house and at Eye; Richard said he would drive us in his 4×4.  Unfortunately for Richard, the further inland we got the less snow there was and he found that he needn’t have driven me and Mum after all!  He had to sit through a High Church service at Eye church with bells, incense and a procession to boot, because he had been gallant.  Richard doesn’t like High Church services – his Methodist upbringing revolts against them.  I was brought up going to High Church services and I can worship anywhere really, but do prefer my own local church with my friends and Richard by my side.  I think I’ll be left to drive Mum to church on my own as usual in future, whatever the weather!

These next photos were taken by Richard on his phone on Sunday morning.

View of the garden from the conservatory

The greenhouse seen from the conservatory

The garden on the south side of the house from the conservatory

I went out for the evening twice last week.  On Tuesday evening I took Mum to a performance of the opera ‘Don Pasquale’ by Donizetti.  It was performed by the Glyndebourne Touring Company at the Theatre Royal in Norwich.  We loved it very much indeed.  The singing, the costumes, the orchestra and the stage set were fabulous.  A really enjoyable evening out only spoiled by a gale blowing and making driving and walking difficult – Mum was nearly blown over a couple of times and I had to hold onto her tightly.  Clouds of leaves were swirling about in front of the car and bits of tree were falling onto the road all about us.  As I drove along I was aware of loose branches swinging to and fro just above the car and hoped I could get out of the way before they fell.  Fortunately I got my mother and myself safely to Norwich and then back home again.

Wild Rosehips in the hedge.

On Saturday night Richard and I went to see ‘Uncle Vanya’ by Chekhov performed by the Open Space Theatre Company at The Cut in Halesworth.  We both enjoyed the play very much which was acted and directed well.  On leaving the theatre we found it had started snowing and as Richard had left his hat in the car he got quite wet and cold on our brisk walk to the carpark.  The snow was falling heavily as we left the town and Richard found it very difficult keeping to the road once we left the street-lights behind.  Most of our lanes have deep ditches running along next to them and there is always the risk of driving into a ditch in the dark.  We were glad to get home again and into the warm.  The snow didn’t last long and by morning most of the roads and paths were mainly clear but icy.

All photos in this post were taken either in our house or in the garden except for the ones of St Michael’s church.

My musical choice is performed by Emeli Sandé and Jules Holland.

Thanks for visiting!

 

January’s End

Tags

art work, catkins, ice, January, reflections, signs of spring, snow, sunrise, sunset

The last day of the first month of the year.  There are plenty of signs of spring about.

Snowdrops in the garden

Hazel catkins

 

Gorse at Minsmere. Though gorse is in flower through most of the year!

 

 

But there were signs of spring about in the autumn too.

Cowslip in the garden at the end of August.  We had a strange summer!

 

We have had rain and hail and sleet and even snow this month.  High winds, fog, thunder and lightening and even some sunshine!

Snowfall on Thursday afternoon.

It was quite heavy while it lasted!

 

The snow hasn’t lingered.  By lunchtime on Friday it had all gone again.  Despite the frosts, the ground is still fairly warm; especially the roads and paths.  We had a wet year last year and a very mild autumn and early winter.  The grass continues to grow and grow and we have no opportunity for cutting it.  The garden is very, very untidy.  The best days for gardening are the days we cannot get out there.  Such is life!

We have had some glorious sunsets.

A fiery furnace!

Reflected glory!

We have had some exceptional sunrises too.

I admired the colour scheme here.

When I have been able to get outside there has been plenty to see, though the light has not often been good enough for photography.

Reflections (and the remnants of the ice) on the big pond

The whorl of a new thistle.

Reflection of the moon and trees in the corner pond.

I woke to snow fall this morning and we got a dusting that settled everywhere as the frost had been hard last night.  The ponds were all covered in ice and snow.  By the time Elinor came downstairs (at midday!) it had all (except the pond ice) gone.  It is snowing again now as I type this.

Elinor has not had a very good week as she has been very anxious again.  She was unable to go into college on Tuesday and Friday.  She has produced some good art work though.

Richard is in Manchester this weekend visiting his mother in her nursing home and staying with his brother.  He took his brother a gift of a barrel of local Adnam’s beer which last night, so I heard, was being left to settle in my brother-in-law’s cellar.  I doubt whether it will be left to settle long!

I must now go outside quickly to top up the bird-feeders before it gets dark.  The snow has changed to sleet unfortunately.  I dislike sleet very much.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Weather

Tags

blackberry, clouds, cowslips, gardening, primroses, rhubarb, snow, weather

The weather is a topic we British never tire of talking about.  This is because it is forever changing and unpredictable.  The temperature can rise or fall by as much as ten degrees centigrade in just a few hours at any time of the day; we can have warm days in winter and cold days in summer and a rain cloud is usually just about to appear over the horizon.  Our lives are all affected by the weather to a lesser or greater extent.  The North Atlantic Drift around our shores protects us from the bitter cold winters that other countries this far north have to endure.  We are a maritime nation.

I live in north Suffolk at a latitude of about 52.5 degrees north which is further north than Winnipeg and at about the same latitude as Berlin, Warsaw and Irkutsk.  We are buffeted by the strong, wet, warm Westerlies from the Atlantic but also get winds straight from the Arctic or from Siberia and, if the weather forecast is correct for this weekend, we also get nice warm winds from the south-east; from the Mediterranean.  Lovely!

Yesterday began with a frost.  The temperature had gone down to minus 2 degrees centigrade overnight but at dawn the sky was starting to cloud over and the frost soon disappeared.  We then had a day of ‘April’ weather – lots of showers of hail, sleet and rain – and also some sunshine.  Not a good day for gardening!  I spent most of it with my mother taking her shopping and then to church with her for Stations of the Cross and then a Mass.

March and April can be so beautiful but the gardener must be forever vigilant and protect vulnerable plants from frost, ice and also the strengthening sun.  I looked at my diaries for last winter the other day and made a note of the amount of snow we had had.  The first lot of snow was on the 5th of December 2012 and temperatures didn’t get much above freezing for some days after that.  A thaw on 14th December.  Snow again on 13th January 2013 and snow showers continuing most days without a thaw until 26th January. A thaw on 27th January.  Snow again on 2nd February and snow showers most days until a thaw on 14th February.  Snow flurries from 21st to 24th February and then heavy snow from 9th to 13th March which took ages to disappear.  A day of snow on 4th April.  And this winter not one flake of snow here at all!  Yet!  The thaws and consequent ice are the real problems I find during a cold winter.  This is what kills the plants and damages roads and buildings.

R and I are weather watchers and we have such a wonderful view of the wide East Anglian sky from the back of our house.  I took a couple of photos of the edge of a cold front going over last Friday.  The thick grey cloud overhead with a sharp edge to it to the west and clear blue sky beyond approaching on a stiff south-westerly breeze.

The following day was Saturday and a good gardening day.  I had weeded round our rhubarb plant during last week, which, by the way is now ready for pulling, and I had tidied the blackberry canes next to it as well.  The blackberry wanted to grow where the rhubarb is and I had a bit of a fight with it, removing unwanted canes and cutting down others.  It is now nice and tidy with most of the new canes tied up and well away from the rhubarb.  I also had to dig up some cowslip plants from where they wanted to grow in the lawn and put them where R and I want them to grow, on the edge of the ditch at the front of the house.  R finds it difficult to mow round the flowers when they are in the lawn and even though I think they look lovely there it will make R’s job quicker and easier now they are elsewhere.  We have a few different coloured cowslips in our garden and some new plants which are neither primroses nor cowslips.  The bees do a good job of fertilizing all our flowers and the resultant mongrel plants are very interesting and varied.  Next to the rhubarb on the opposite side to the blackberry I found a wonderful collection of different types of primula.  I have dug these up and put them in a seed bed area to see how they develop.

I then spent a little time looking at and photographing the clouds.  Caravans and convoys of clouds travelling across the sky.  To use a well-worn simile they really are like fleets of sailing ships on the ocean.  R likes to look at clouds and see pictures and objects in them:  I see islands and mountain ranges in the sky.

 

 

 

 

 

Later that afternoon the sky darkened and even though we stayed dry there were rain clouds all around us.