Anglesey Abbey

Tags

Anglesey Abbey, Cambridge, country house, gardens, Lord Fairhaven, National Trust, snowdrops, winter aconites

Elinor had an interview at Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge one Saturday at the beginning of February.  Both Richard and I accompanied her there and waited in the Ruskin Gallery while she went on a tour of the art facilities and then had her interview.  I admired the light fittings which, as with many functional buildings and their fittings designed pre WW2, were beautiful in their own right.

I am not referring to the modern lights but to the wrought iron that attaches the bar ( from which oil lamps were hung, I assume ) to the ceiling.

After Elinor had finished at the University we took the bus back to the park-and-ride car park and drove to nearby Anglesey Abbey.  We had hoped for some lunch in the café and a quiet walk round the grounds in the sunshine.  We hadn’t realised that the whole of Cambridgeshire would also have the same idea as us and the place was packed!  We managed to buy some sandwiches and a drink each and fought our way to a table.  After eating we escaped outside and walked about in the sunshine.

Anglesey Abbey is famous for its spring bulbs, especially its snowdrops, and I had wanted to visit for some years.

Snowdrops and winter aconites under the trees.

Wide lawns with under-planted trees.

Masses of snowdrops

Snowdrops and winter aconites.

Snowdrops and winter aconites.

Note the long shadows just after midday in February.

We were getting cold in the strong breeze so decided to look at the house.

The former priory was converted into a dwelling in about the year 1600.

We toured the house but I didn’t manage to get any photographs of the interior.  It was so crowded it was difficult to see many of the rooms which were stuffed with objets d’arts, paintings and furniture as well as people.  The library was wonderful as it not only contained the typical sets of required books that most large libraries have but also many books that were obviously bought to be read and had been read by the family.  We were pleased to see all Lord Fairhaven’s boyhood adventure books on a top shelf.

The library . A photograph I found by searching Yahoo! images.

The dining room; also courtesy of Yahoo! images.

The long gallery was being re-decorated and all the furniture and ornaments from there had been redistributed about the house.  I must admit that most of the furniture and ornaments were not to my taste.

I had wished to see the garden with the silver birches but by the time we left the house we were running out of energy.

The winter garden courtesy of Yahoo! images.

One of the many gardens in the grounds.

A beautiful oriel window.

An espalier pear tree against the wall of the Abbey.

The front of the abbey.

A beautifully prepared garden. I wonder what it will contain later this year!

An attractive bench….

……with Richard sitting on it.

Hellebore

Cyclamen

We left the garden without having seen all of it but with any luck we will return and finish our tour one day.

A Walk Round the Garden

Tags

bee hive, bee orchids, cornelian cherry, crocus, discs of ice, February, garden, hazel catkins, ice, ivy, Jelly Ear fungus, landscaping, lichens, moss, pond, scrub clearance, seedheads, snowdrops, Suffolk, tree surgery, Viburnum, wild cherry, willow, witch-hazel

We had a bright but chilly day recently, so I took the opportunity to photograph a few interesting things I saw on a stroll round our garden.

Wild Cherry (Prunus avium)

We have two wild cherry trees and I noticed the buds beginning to swell on this one.

Snowdrops (Galanthus nivalis)

There is a rough patch of land beyond our compost heaps, in-between us and one of our neighbours which has patches of snowdrops.

Hazel catkins (Corylus avellana)

The catkins were blowing about in the strong breeze and I gave up trying to focus on them.  The female flowers were just beginning to show as well but again, my camera wouldn’t take a clear picture of them.

I liked the look of the Ivy (Hedera helix) growing up this Horse Chestnut (Aesculus Hippocastenaceae ) tree trunk

I like the colours on the ivy leaves and the pattern of the veins.

As you might be able to see, there are any number of lichens growing on this tree trunk.  I couldn’t get a clear shot of any of them so I copied the photograph above and then cropped it.  The result wasn’t too bad though not good enough to identify the lichens.  This was only a very small area of the original photo.

Lichens and green algae on a tree trunk

Jelly Ear fungus ( Auricularia auricula-judae)

A few dead trees have been blown down in recent storms and I found this fungus growing on one of them.

More fungus.

This moss was shining in the bright sunlight

One of our neighbours has started keeping bees.

Just after Christmas we had a landscape gardener come and cut back this willow which had grown lots of suckers and had spread too much.

The little island in the pond was given a haircut too.

This is the island where the Greylags have always nested.  Last year the nest was abandoned after it was attacked by something.  We had hoped that by clearing the island the geese would have better visibility and would have earlier warning of danger from otter or mink.  They have usually visited by mid February but there has been no sign of them yet this year.  After a very wet winter the pond has re-filled and the reeds that were threatening to take over have been swamped.  They will survive under water so we will have to dig them out eventually if we wish to retain the pond as it is.

Discs of ice

The pond had been frozen but the sun had melted most of the ice.  Just these tiny discs of ice remained.  Out of focus again, I’m afraid.

Ice disc  

These papery seedheads belong to the Bee Orchids (Ophrys apifera) that grow in our garden.

I was pleased to see the green rosettes of new leaves at the base of the old flower stalks.

Another view of the pond. Richard has been working hard clearing most of the brambles and other scrub plants from around the pond during the last week. The dead grass and brambles in the foreground of this photo are no longer there!

Our corner pond still has plenty of ice on it.

Not many days before this photo was taken I had seen newts swimming in this pond.   The water is cleaner here than in the other larger pond as there is no chemical run-off from the agricultural fields.

The Witch-hazel I have growing in a tub near the front door is blooming.

As are the crocus…..

Yellow crocus

Yellow crocus

The pink Viburnum flowers look good against a blue sky. They smell wonderful too!

Cornelian Cherry ( Cornus mas)

This tree is awaiting the right time to plant it out into the garden – it is in a large pot.  Meanwhile, it has decided to flower in a small way!

We have been told to expect some more cold weather during the next week or two so many of these flowers will suffer, no doubt.

I leave you with a favourite song from Enzo Enzo – ‘Juste Quelqu’un De Bien’.

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.

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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!

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.

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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!

Old News

Tags

Black Spleenwort, family, hazel catkins, primrose, Rumburgh Church, Sainsbury Centre, snowdrops, spring, St Michael and St Felix Church Rumburgh, Suffolk, University of East Anglia, witch-hazel

It is over a month since I last wrote a diary post.  We haven’t done very much in that time but the days are getting longer and there are signs of spring in the garden and hedgerows.

Witch hazel

Witch hazel

Witch hazel

ooOOoo

The central elements on our old toaster had stopped working so we have bought ourselves a new toaster and this new one manages to toast both sides of a slice of bread at the same time!  It has a ‘bagel button’ (though as I have never eaten a bagel I think I would prefer to call it a ‘teacake button’) which toasts one side and warms the other.  We can now re-live the old toaster experience, except in reverse.

Snowdrops in bud

ooOOoo

Another excitement has been the emptying and repair of the septic tank.  Only those of you who do not have mains sewage can truly relate to this.  The tank was well overdue for emptying and we knew it needed repairing a year ago but we have been let down by our usual contractor and have had to find someone new.  The new contractor arrived and did what he had to do and was efficient and professional.  An added bonus, as far as we were concerned, was the wind direction on the day.

Hazel catkins in the hedge

ooOOoo

We have decided to have all our internal doors replaced and a carpenter has visited and priced up the job for us.  He will be doing the work over three days next week.  Richard will then have to spend quite a lot of time painting the doors, as well as all the skirting boards and the banisters.  We hope to redecorate the hall, stairs and landing and get a new carpet some time in the next few months.

I’m not sure how many hazel nuts we will have on this tree this year. The female flowers have appeared before the male catkins have matured.

ooOOoo

At the very end of January we had a morning prayer service at our church of St Michael and St Felix at Rumburgh.  The day before the service Richard and I called in at the church to make sure everything was tidy and to set the heating to come on well before the service.  It was a cold day but inside the church was even colder than out in the open!

I found the first rather bedraggled primroses of the year in a sheltered spot in the churchyard.

I also found my first snowdrops of the year

Rumburgh gravestone

This gravestone has a skull engraved on it.  Richard was asked to see if it was still in the graveyard recently as there had been a report that it might have gone missing.

The west door, which isn’t used anymore.

The west window

Work will start on March the 20th on the new tower screen in the church.  We have been saving for years and years to get the work done and at last it is about to happen.  Once the screen is in place the tower will be shut off from the body of the church and we hope it might be less draughty and warmer.

Black Spleenwort (Asplenium adiantum-nigrum) growing in the mortar on the wall of the church

ooOOoo

Elinor has now left the City College but we hope this is only a temporary thing.  As I mentioned in my last diary post she wants to enrol on a one year Art and Design course for older students and has therefore filled out the application form.  We have been notified that the college has received the form and I hope we will hear that Elinor has an interview soon.  At the interview she will be expected to hand in a review of an exhibition she has been to see recently and with that in mind, we went to the Sainsbury Centre in Norwich and viewed an exhibition of 20th century Japanese photography.  Photography was not allowed in the exhibition hall but there is a large collection of world art on display in the main gallery, most of the exhibits donated by Lord and Lady Sainsbury.

Below are my favourites from the main gallery.

Edgar Degas – Little Dancer Aged Fourteen

Edgar Degas – Little Dancer Aged Fourteen

A beautiful Benin bronze – the Head of an Oba; early 16th century

Henry Moore – Mother and Child

Whistling bottles from Equador – one in the shape of an owl and the other is a bird sitting on eggs or pods.  Both 1000 – 100 BC

Another couple of exhibits from Equador

Sketch for a Portrait of Lisa by Francis Bacon

Standing Jizo Bosatsu – Japan (1185-1333)

The top exhibit with the ram’s head is a backstrap from a sword or dagger hilt – India late 17th century The lower exhibit is an archer’s thumb-ring in the form of a bird – India 17th – 18th century

Left rear – Image of the Goddess Kaumari, India 17th century.   Right rear – Shiva as Chandrashekharamurti, South India c. AD 1100.   Front centre – Figure of Chamunda Devi, Nepal/Tibet 17th/18th century

Walking Hippopotamus – Egypt c. 1880 BC

The Sainsbury Centre.  One of the first major buildings designed by Sir Norman Foster, it was completed in 1978.

It is a steel clad building with one face almost entirely glazed.

By the late 80’s the collection had grown so much that Foster was asked to design an extension. He decided to build underground and this is one of the entrances to it.

The new basement has a curved glass frontage that emerges from the slope underneath the original building overlooking the man-made lake.  This new wing can only be seen from the lake but as it was very muddy there and beginning to go dark on a very gloomy day, I was unable to photograph it.

The University of East Anglia’s grounds looking towards the lake

Part of the university. There are many items of sculpture to be seen here.

Another Henry Moore sculpture

The University has an excellent creative writing department and many well known writers have studied here. Tracy Chevalier; Kazuo Ishiguro; Ian McEwan; Rose Tremain – to name but a few.

My music choice today is a song from Katie Melua.

Thanks for visiting!

Nothing In Particular

Tags

'The Company', Agatha Christie, And Then There Were None, Berwang Holiday Music Course, Candlemas, Christmas Cactus, church, family, flowers, funeral, hellebores, house improvements, Kerry Camden, Mozart, phalaenopsis orchid, renovations, Serenade for 13 Winds, snowdrops, wet weather

Snowdrops under the crabapple tree

As the title of this post states, this is about nothing in particular.  Since Christmas we, as a family, have been nowhere and have done nothing except the usual chores of housework and shopping and driving – and in Elinor’s case, going to college.  Richard has just returned from three nights away in Manchester staying with his brother and enjoyed a visit to a mining museum and a trip to Bury Market and the East Lancashire Railway.  Elinor and I stayed at home.

A Hellebore flower

We have found the changeable weather a little trying but fortunately for us we haven’t had to deal with flooding, just lots of deep puddles and mud, mud and yet more mud!  My car was half brown and half blue and the mud had oozed into the car round the doors, so just before he went away Richard hosed it down for me and restored it to its original blue-all-over colour.

Another Hellebore

The next two weeks will be very busy as we are beginning on our house renovations.  The new garage doors were fitted today and most of the windows and doors in the house will be replaced next week.  I am not looking forward to the disruption at all but when it is done the house will be warmer and more secure.

Snowdrop flower. Please excuse the horrible red finger!

One of my aunts died last Sunday 24th January and I will be travelling to Kent with my brother tomorrow for her funeral.  Richard will be staying at home and will be driving Elinor to and from college.  It will be good to see my cousins again despite the sad occasion.   My aunt was my late father’s older sister and she was the last of Dad’s siblings.  I have six first cousins on Dad’s side of the family and I am hoping to see most of them tomorrow.  Andrew (my brother) and I will be meeting up with Francesca (my sister) when we get to the church.

Phalaenopsis Orchid

I am also going to visit Alice in Sheffield on the 12th of February and I will be watching her perform in another play, ‘And Then There Were None’ – an adaptation of the book by Agatha Christie.

Here is the trailer they have made for the play.  I think you will be amused!

All my Christmas Cacti are re-flowering. Perhaps these are now Candlemas Cacti?

It is Candlemas today.  We had a Eucharist service at Rumburgh on Sunday and celebrated the festival early.  At Candlemas we remember three things; the presentation of the child Jesus, Jesus’ first entry into the temple and the Virgin Mary’s purification.  Traditionally, candles are also blessed at Candlemas and Richard our priest gave us two new altar candles.

My choice of music today is Mozart’s Serenade for 13 Winds in B-flat major.  My first introduction to this piece was when I was nearly 14 years of age and I was on a music course in the Austrian Tirol.  I was lucky enough to be given the first (lead) clarinet part and I loved the whole experience – the great responsibility, the team-work, the music itself.  I will never forget that feeling of euphoria as we played through the whole piece together!  As soon as I hear the opening bars of music I am transported back in time to Austria, I am 13 years old and full of hope and excitement.  This was my first ever trip abroad and I and a friend travelled there with our clarinet teacher and Kerry Camden the bassoonist who drove us from London all the way to the Tirol with a stop overnight in the Ardennes.  I had a one-year passport and my parents had given me £15 spending money!

Thanks for visiting!

 

A Quiet Week

Tags

barn owl, bracket fungus, cut flowers, daffodils, garden, geese, greylags, liquid manure, primroses, snowdrops, Suffolk, tulips, winter aconites

We haven’t done anything special this week – just kept quite busy doing ordinary things.  This post will be made up of a few photos of some of the things I have seen in the past few days.

I bought these tulips on Monday. I love the mixture of bright colours.  They are also scented.

I hardly ever buy flowers for the house and the only flowers I bring indoors from the garden are poor damaged blooms that have been knocked over by wind, rain or visiting wildlife.

I love flowers so I am not sure why I don’t have them in the house often.  I know I can’t arrange flowers so that may have something to do with it.  I also feel sorry for them – I love to see them outside where they belong and think it’s a shame to cut them.  Amusingly, whenever Alice sees a vase of flowers she thinks Richard and I have had an argument.  Sometimes we have and sometimes we haven’t.

I saw this bracket fungus on a willow log in the garden.

My Hellebores have just begun to flower.

A tub full of Tete-a-tete daffodils.

These tiny little daffodils are only about 4″ high and grow under the Winter-flowering Honeysuckle.

I found a few more aconites in a gravelly area. Gravel must be where they like to grow. I must pull those weeds up!

The joys of living in the country! Fortunately the wind was blowing the heady aroma away from me. I had a line of washing hanging out on Tuesday as it was warm and sunny and a breeze was blowing. I had to take it indoors quickly once I saw what was happening.

The Greylags are back in our garden and the field behind the house. This is the gander.

And this is the goose.  You can only just see her.

Fifteen geese turned up on Thursday morning. Here are most of them. The geese return each year at the end of February and often there is a day or so of arguments as to who should nest on the little island on our pond. I didn’t notice anything this year but that may be because I am away from the house a lot more.

I got closer to these few. Once the goose starts sitting on her eggs the extended family call in to visit now and then. Her gander stays with her all the time and I am sure gets very bored wandering about on his own. He is very protective of his goose. For the last two years there have been no goslings which I find very sad. They may be laying infertile eggs or ‘something ‘ may be taking the young when first hatched. We have grass snakes and I have seen an otter on the pond, but not recently. Last year I witnessed a Moorhen chick being dragged underwater by something. My brother suggests that it could be a turtle. Someone unscrupulous may have disposed of it into our pond. I haven’t seen any other evidence of a turtle so far. Neighbours say they have seen a mink which they believe has taken all their ducklings.  That seems more likely as a culprit.

I have a film I shot of the former pair of geese with their goslings swimming on the pond.  When I work out how to put it on U-Tube and then transfer it back to WordPress you will see how lovely they are.  I have also recorded a short film at dusk with the song of a Song Thrush and a Tawny Owl hooting.  I will try to post that too one day.

This is one of the two Barn Owls we see regularly.

They are also known as screech owls as their call is not a hoot but a screech.

They look like giant moths when they fly. Their heads are very large.

Primroses and Snowdrops in the ditch between us and the old schoolhouse.

Thank-you for visiting!

February’s End

Tags

bluebell, clematis montana, crocus, ditches, Elder, gardening, herb garden, herbs, hyacinth, mole hill, ponds, snowdrops, stinging nettles, viburnum bodnantense, vole hole, winter aconite, witch-hazel

Part of our garden as seen from near the house. This photo was taken on Sunday afternoon when it was still quite breezy. We had great plans for our garden when we first moved in nine years ago but because of a number of reasons we have had to delay doing most of the work. Maybe, once Richard is retired and not travelling away from home so much, we can get on with it!

I am surprised at how quickly this year is speeding past.  Christmas was a bit of a non-event – I can’t remember much about it at all – and since then the days and weeks have merged together into a bit of a blur and here we are at the beginning of March!

We seem to have been alternating between days of sun and days of gloom and/or rain recently.  Friday began with frost and continued with bright sunshine and white clouds all day.  Elinor has yet another streaming, heavy cold and took the day off college. Richard has started taking every Friday off work as he has been given extra pre-retirement leave.  I went with him to Bungay where he called in at the barber’s shop for a haircut while I went to the bank and then to the post office.  We then drove to Harleston which is just over the border into Norfolk, where we bought an enormous 25 litre container of de-ionised water for my iron, steam mop and steam cleaner.

My Witch-hazel in a pot by the front-door. Cynthia Reyes asked me to describe the scent of the flowers. I have had great difficulty trying to think of an adjective to describe the scent. It isn’t a floral smell at all and only smells slightly like the smell of the astringent made from the leaves and bark. I then remembered a book I loved reading as a girl and also read to both my daughters when they were small – ‘The Children of Green Knowe’ by Lucy M Boston. In it someone says Witch-hazel flowers smell like something to eat and I think that is a good description. I would say that the scent is like that of warm, spicy yeast buns or bread.

After lunch I went into the garden and stayed out there until just after 5.30 pm!  Heaven!  I have been doing a little garden tidying whenever I have had a moment and so far I have reduced the size of a few perennial herbs and taken out completely a lot of tired and woody plants from my herb garden.  When the chance of all frost has gone I will replace them with new ones.  I took some cuttings from my elderly thyme last year so those will go in and there are some little seedling chive plants coming up in the wrong places which will be transplanted to the right places.  Other herbs will be replaced when I get the opportunity.  I tend not to grow perennial herbs from seed (in fact I haven’t grown anything from seed for a long time – lack of time mainly).  I only usually need one plant of each herb so I buy them from the garden centre – I find taking cuttings from perennials easy if I need more.  I love basil and one day will grow some more from seed along with parsley and other annuals.  Meanwhile, supermarkets sell pots of annual herbs for cooking which can be re-potted and grown on and garden centres sell them quite cheaply too.  I hope to get a drying cabinet to dry my herbs one day.  Herbs attract so many lovely insects so I let them flower.  Birds visit the herbs to eat the insects and the seeds too.

My rather sad-looking herb garden at the front of the house. I am hoping that by the summer it will be full of lush, green growth with mauve and cream and yellow flowers visited by bees and butterflies.

More recently I have been clearing weeds and moss from the paths and trimming the lawn edges back away from the paths.  A tiring, back-breaking job but very satisfying because all looks so neat and tidy when it is done.  I finished the job on Friday!

Stepping stones through the grass that we haven’t been able to cut since early autumn. The grass hasn’t stopped growing but the ground is too sodden to put a lawnmower on!

Path at the side of the house

I also cut right back an enormous Clematis Montana ‘Rubens’ which was not only growing well along its trellis but had spread across to the shed and was trying to smother it and was also growing in the other direction towards the greenhouse.  I realise that this is the wrong time of year to prune Clematis Montana but I had attempted it last summer and failed miserably.  It grew so fast because of all the rain we had had and any attempt at pruning seemed to encourage it to grow faster.  It won’t flower this year I know, but Richard will be able to re-paint the shed and we have regained about 3′ x 10′ of garden!

The bald and diminished Clematis. Not a very professional job but I didn’t want to take any more away in case I killed it!

 

My mother got a lift to her church yesterday!  I spoke to a lady about it a month ago and had almost given up on her remembering or doing anything about it.  However, we have a result at last!  I had begun to find that I was being expected to give other people lifts home as well.  I don’t like to think of elderly people being stranded but it was adding quite a bit to my mileage and driving time and, well, who was taking them there?  Couldn’t they take their passenger home again?

Snowdrops at the top of the bank of the front ditch.

Richard went back to see the clinician at the hospital two weeks ago and was given the bad news that he has osteoporosis.  He should have been told before Christmas but the doctor in charge forgot and had also forgotten to arrange a meeting with the surgeon at Addenbrooke’s hospital.  (Addenbrookes is a hospital in Cambridge affiliated with Cambridge University.  It specialises in neurosurgery, transplants and cancer treatments among others).  Richard was a little disappointed.  His GP (General Practitioner/local doctor) has been comforting and supportive however, and Richard feels a little more positive about it all.

A vole hole – we have lots of these.

A mole hill – we have lots of these too!

Prosaically, I have had a sore and bleeding nose for the past month and I had it cauterized on Thursday with silver nitrate.  I have also a dry patch in my throat which may be connected to the nose infection and may be something else.  The GP thinks it may be burning from reflux acid and has doubled my prescription of gastro-inhibitor which I take against the side effects of ibruprofen etc!  I know that I don’t get heartburn and told the GP so but he wants to rule it out as a cause of the throat problem so I have to take the tablets which have caused upset stomach!  Life (and doctors) can be extremely tedious sometimes.

Bluebell leaves just emerging.

My sister, who is a paramedic and has recently got a degree from university which makes her a practitioner (she can now prescribe drugs and treatment), has been presented an award at work for leadership skills.  I am very proud of her and the award is well deserved.

A single solitary Winter Aconite flower

My brother stayed the night with us on Wednesday and visited Mum on Thursday.  He has obtained a transfer at work and starts his new job in three weeks time but still hasn’t got a buyer for his house.  He has seen a new house he would love but is afraid he won’t be able to have it if he can’t sell his old house very soon.

Viburnum bodnantense flowers

Alice, my eldest daughter, still hasn’t got a full-time job, not through want of trying.  She has the date of her Viva – the spoken part of her PhD  – which will be on the 23rd April.  She is nervous about it but it will be such a relief to get it all over and done with.  She is very poor at the moment and I know is not eating enough.  I sent her some money the other day but I realise it won’t go very far.

Rather stunted pink Hyacinths

Saturday was very gloomy and windy with occasional drizzle during the day which developed into rain by evening with very strong gusts of wind.  I ironed for most of the day.

The corner pond

The front ditch that flows into the corner pond.  We have ditches circling most of our garden – almost like a moat!

Sunday was very bright and sunny again but the wind was still strong.  We went to our church at Rumburgh for Morning Prayer.  Unfortunately, there were only five of us there including Maurice who took the service.  We discussed everyone’s ill health – as one does!  Our Rector has had his heart operation but there have been complications and he is still quite unwell; we pray for his speedy return to full health.

The big pond with its little island on which greylag geese nest each year.

The big pond – looking towards the house

I did some more tidying in the garden during Sunday afternoon.  I had discovered some daffodil bulbs a couple of days ago that I had removed from a flowerbed last autumn because of over-crowding and then forgotten about.  The poor things were trying to grow so I have planted them alongside one of our hedges.  Fortunately they are late flowering bulbs and as tough as old boots so they should do well.  I also tidied up lots of pots and tubs full of spring and summer bulbs that I had stored behind the greenhouse.  They were a bit weed-covered and the voles/mice and birds had been having fun with some of them.  Stinging nettles were starting to invade the area where the pots had been so I pulled quite a few out and will keep my eye on any new shoots appearing in the next few weeks.  Nettles are easy to pull out at this time of year especially with our saturated soil – thick gloves are necessary though!

Elder leaves coming out

Today started with frost and clear skies but by mid-morning we had had a couple of showers of rain and the wind had picked up again so much that the top of my bird-table was blown off.  It flew through the air and embedded itself in the lawn.  I am glad no-one was in its path!  Elinor went back to college today but only has classes during the morning on a Monday.  I shopped in Bungay and just had time to put the groceries away and put some laundry in the washing machine before I had to return to Norwich to collect her.  This afternoon we had hail, sleet and wet snow showers and then more sunshine.  March has come in like a lion – will it go out like a lamb?  The forecast is for cold nights and windy weather for the next few days and then warmer weather with the winds coming up from the Azores instead of from Canada for the weekend.  We shall see!

Weekend

Tags

Celandines, clouds, daffodils, Dog's Mercury, dogwood, farmland, Jacob sheep, lichen, Lords and Ladies, primroses, snowdrops, St Margaret's church, Suffolk, sunset, walking, Winter Heliotrope

Calves in the cow shed at our friends’ farm.  The blurring is caused by the calves’ steamy breath.

On Saturday, Richard and I went to the church coffee morning held this month at our friends’ farm instead of at the Rector’s house.  Our Rector had his heart surgery last week, and will be off work for some time while he recovers.  We wish him a speedy return to full health.  As usual we listened to all the gossip and news.  I bought some delicious home-made Bakewell bars which we ate later that day and Richard won a tin of sweets in the raffle.

Saturday was cloudy and chilly but there was no frost and the birds were singing lustily.  I heard the chaffinch’s spring song for the first time this year.

Sunday was a much brighter day.  The church service was held at our church in Rumburgh so Richard and I got there early to get things ready.  The church didn’t need much tidying as I had helped another lady to clean it thoroughly on Friday and there had been a wedding on Saturday afternoon after which Richard had tidied up again.

After lunch we went out for a walk.  We decided against driving somewhere and also thought it better not to walk across the fields as everywhere is waterlogged.  We took our usual circuit of a couple of miles, walking along the lanes.  I have photographed this walk so many times now, so I will just show you a few of the new and/or interesting things I saw.

A part of the ditch in our lane has recently been chased out. Regular ditch maintenance is necessary to ensure proper field drainage and to stop flooding on the roads.

This field has been newly ploughed. For years probably, it has been rough grass with heaps of old rusty farm implements alongside the hedge.

Italian Alder tree (Alnus cordata)  There is a row of these trees along the roadside.

Italian Alder catkins

I found that Dog’s Mercury (Mercurialis perennis) was already starting to flower.

This plant is found in woodland often forming carpets, also under hedges and in other shady places.  It has a fetid smell and is poisonous, being a member of the spurge family (Euphorbiaceae).  Male and female flowers are found on separate plants and are small and yellow in spikes.  It is pollinated by midges.

Bright green Dog’s Mercury.

Lords-and-ladies (Arum maculatum)

Another woodland and hedgerow plant.  I was surprised that these leaves were matte green – they are usually glossy.  Another plant that smells of decay when in flower, the berries are poisonous and the roots have a high starch content.  In Elizabethan times the roots were gathered to make starch for stiffening the high pleated linen ruffs that were then in fashion.

The white spots in the photo are midges or Winter Gnats flying in the sunshine.

This dead tree at the end of a hedge and at the entrance to a field is covered in lichen. The bark of the tree has started to fall off taking the lichen with it.

 

 

Our long shadows and that of the hedge behind us can be seen on the field as I took a photo of the beautiful cloud patterns

The clouds.

The Dogwood (Cornus sanguinea) twigs were blazing in the low sunlight.

A hollow tree. In spite of its hollow trunk and all the ivy growing up it the tree, an oak I think, is still alive.

Jacob sheep. They will be having their lambs soon.

 

 

 

 

Winter Heliotrope (Petasites fragrans) growing along the roadside verge near someones house. The flowers are vanilla-scented and the plant spreads quite quickly preferring damp and shady places. It is a naturalised garden plant.

Snowdrops (Galanthus nivalis) in the churchyard

Primroses too! (Primula vulgaris)

St Margaret’s church porch has an upstairs room.

 

 

 

 

White lichen on a gravestone

A daffodil bud in the sheltered churchyard.

 

Celandines (Ranunculus ficaria) flowering on the roadside verge.  I was so surprised to see these as they don’t usually appear until March.  They were everywhere I looked, though as the sun was setting they were closing up for the night.  I should have got there an hour earlier.

Sunset.

 

We got home as the sun sank below the horizon.

This week Elinor is taking her mock GCSE exams.  She has already taken Psychology and English.  Maths is on Wednesday and Thursday and Art is all day on Friday.  She is coping very well indeed though she is exhausted already with the strain of it all.

Richard stays away from home only one night this week; Wednesday night is spent in Gloucestershire.  On Friday he goes back to the specialist to find out more about the lesion/tumour on his pituitary gland and what is to be done about it.

I am disappointed at not being able to go to Sheffield  to see Alice perform in ‘Emma’ especially as she is taking the leading role.  I would really have loved to see her and support her but the performances are at the same time as Elinor’s exams and Richard’s hospital visit.  I also don’t have much money to spare for train travel and hotel rooms after Christmas and Elinor’s birthday in January.

My mother is fine.  She went to the eye specialist on the 30th December and had to return the next day for an injection to stop a bleed in her eye.  We went back last week for a check-up and fortunately all is well again.  The next appointment is in mid March.  My brother has filed for divorce and is in the process of selling his house.  He is moving to Suffolk to be near us and Mum and especially his daughter and has got a transfer to work in the open prison in Suffolk and continue his teaching.  My sister is working hard as always as a paramedic practitioner. She got her degree and will be getting her certificate at a ceremony in May.  My mother-in-law is out of hospital and in a nursing home.  This is a temporary arrangement as she hasn’t yet been assessed but we all know that she won’t be able to go back home.  She has a weak heart, breast cancer, problems with her thyroid and has lost all her mobility.  All so sad.  She understands the situation and is making the best of it; such a sensible woman.

 

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.