The rain arrives

 

 Wow. what a lovely long dry spell we have had. It's been weeks since we have had rain. The ground has  been suffering but we have now got five  days of rain forecast with up to 30mm of rain expected the first day. I mowed both lawns this morning so by the time the rain stops we should have a great fresh green lawn.

Welcome to summer.

Today I've had the woodburner going and the washing lasted fifty minutes on the line before rain stopped play. Britain! This is the second wash out summer......, there has to be some good weather on the way. It's just a shame that it will be during the week when we are all stuck indoors. Ah well, the garden is looking lush for the rain and the weather beaten roses have made a pretty display in small shot glasses along the window sill. 

Mid summer.

There is something rather magical about coming home at ten thirty in the nighttime and still being able to walk up the garden and see the plants. Having been out for dinner it was lovely to walk the length of the garden, say goodnight to the hens, hello to the neighbour's cat and to take a moment in the haze to look at the outline of the great oak and sniff the scents of the flowers. With one sense (sight) dulled because of the ever diminishing light it seems to enhance the other senses. Hearing an owl - or at four in the morning. the very first  voice of the dawn chorus. Smelling the herbs and flowers and catching the warmth in the air. It's a beautiful time of the year and of the day. If only I had taken a drink outdoors with me and spent twenty minutes swinging in the hammock....... the quietest time of my day and a time for reflection. 

Tonight's the night.

 Just as the sun dropped below the horizon I tool a few shots of the flowers in the garden. See how the white ones glow, often white flowers are highly scented to encourage insects to visit them.

Snow but no snowdrops.

Although these twp photographs were taken on the same day, they were just four miles apart. The first shows the snow on the mountain in the distance and the other shows the spring bulbs out in flower in the park.

Wet and windy.

 This doorway in the Cornish town of Fowey is ready with it's sandbags for a high tide or a deluge of rain.

This island house in Newquay is high enough not to have this problem - it even has it's own bridge.

Whilst the beach looks inviting you will notice that there isn't a soul on it. The evidence for this desertion is  just behind me - a dripping pipe with the water drops turned to ice - caught mid air where the wind froze it as it fell. Boy, was it cold.

Sunshiny days.

 

Even though it's been ultra cold this week, we have managed to get out and about and enjoy the rare glimpses of sun (albeit without any warmth).This was mid week, down at the barrage in Cardiff Bay. And it wasn't only us enjoying the sunshine.

I'd love to be gardening....,

sadly though, it's too cold, too wet, too everything.
Too cold to plant our first earlies (Pentland Javelin, a potato that Luke has planted and enjoyed before) and too wet to dig the veg patch. Although it's tempting, after yesterday's hail and rain the soil will just stick to my boots and fork and I'll compress the ground by standing on it - much better to wait till it's dry and easy to turn over. It is frustrating though. We have a lovely sunny day so it looks like I should be out there. Luckily the over wintering garlic and few onions that I planted last year are looking good so it doesn't feel like a complete no no.

The bulbs pushing through the compost in the pots are doing very well but I think the chickens have trampled over the bulbs under the tree (they love to get underneath the bird feeders and wait for their free meal). We will soon be back to British Summer Time (hooray) and that ancient old Oak will titillate with the beginnings of green tips that suddenly burst forth and coat the branches with lush verdant growth.

 I can hardly wait.

Mr Freeze

Well, failure in mid march and we have icicles hanging off bridges.  The wind is biting and I will be wrapped up warm today.

A walk on the wild side.

Such a wonderful day for a walk. Catkins, snowdrops, ploughed fields and the  shaggy ponies all warming in the afternoon sun.

The birds!

 Blue tit

 Brambling

 Coal tit

Goldfinch

Red sky at night..,

Shepherd's delight, as the saying goes.
This beautiful sunset was captured by Luke two days before the snow set in.

Such a lovely way to say goodnight to the day.

Front, back (no sides)

This was our view of the front and back gardens at 7.30am yesterday morning.

.

It's a white out.

How amazing it is to know there is a drastic change in the weather forecast but to still not believe your eyes on awakening to it?
I called Luke this morning to see the beautiful scene from one of our bedroom windows. It was a like a Christmas card (especially as our neighbours across the road, in their chocolate box house, have decided to leave their blinking Christmas decorations up all year! I'm guessing they find it too much of a hassle to unhook them from the front of their house each January but it will look out of place if and when we experience a heatwave (see, hope springs eternal!).



The sky was a very pale rose-white, the trees - a row of skeletons dusted with icing sugar and the roads, well the roads were a skating rink that only the bravest four wheel drives were attempting to drive along.
And how slowly those fat flakes of swirling snow fell. It was almost as if they were enjoying their slow descent from the clouds and wanted to elongate it by taking a longer circular route. Silently it fell and surprised all of us by blanketing the ground with a carpet of white.
All four bird feeders were put into action and food hidden under the steamer chair for the ground feeders to peck at.
The first to visit were five blackbirds, their silhouettes standing out in contrast to the virgin snow. They've made a crinkly edge to the fence where they landed in the snow and knocked it off.
Next to come was a fat thrush and a robin, quickly followed by the finches - gold, green and crested along with the chaffinches.
We also had the first visit from a single wagtail, twitching in the snow and looking like an Everton mint. At one point we had twelve finches fighting for a place on the sunflower feeder and then the Jay, a flash of cerulean blue and beige, glided through the sky.
We took lots of photographs as the morning light brightened the day and the rosy hue disappeared, leaving only a mass of white everywhere.
Finally, two collar doves gracefully and softly beat their gentle wings across the garden sky and a large wood pigeon landed on the hammock and then plodded into the snow, looking for food.
I sat indoors with a breakfast of pain au raison and hot chocolate and enjoyed the show.

The white stuff

Oh how ridiculous it must appear to people in Alaska when good old Blighty is forecast a few inches of snow.
I went to the supermarket at lunchtime and as I was at the bakery counter I heard one sales girl say to another, *We're out of fresh bread already today*. So much for the 'Keep calm and carry on' slogan that is appearing on everything from tea towels to mugs. Nope, everyone and his dog seems to be buying up bread and milk and stocking up with bottled water. We're only forecast two days of snow!
Luke can't wait for the little hens to be out in the snow, Ive cleared away the ice sheets from the bird baths (although I expect it will be frozen again by the morning) and we'll ensure that the chickens have access to the dry ground in the greenhouse and plenty of high fat food to keep them warm.
Fortunately we can just enjoy the snow here tomorrow as it's my day off but on Saturday I need to venture into the city centre for an event I am hosting. Let's hope the trains are running.
I'm hoping we wake up to a frosting of snow but I'm guessing it's going to be more than that. Check out my 2010 Christmas photos for he last big freeze we had. Luke and I trudged over snow bound fields to buy a turkey for Christmas as our road was cut off and after that the visitors who were meant to be staying couldn't get out of their own drive in Cornwall.

We shall have snow.

Very glad am I that the fork and I got acquainted yesterday as at least the raspberry patch is turned over. I started in the quagmire under the tree that has been compacted by six pairs of chicken's feet as well as those from the wood pigeons and robins that eat the spilled seed from the feeders hanging from the branches. When I turned the soil there it came up in great clumps, and there was a multitude of worms wriggling their heads or tails (who knows which end is which when they are so tiny?) in the newly exposed daylight. When I did my annual trick of unearthing several spring bulbs I decided to leave it all alone and just tidy away the deadheaded detritus. Even just an hour in the garden produced an entire binful of garden waste and made the garden look much tidier.
Not before time too as only a few hours later the snow fell, slowly and silently against the inky blackness of the winter sky. It hasn't settled overnight but we are expecting a few frosty starts this week. Nature will break up the soil with her frosts and the bulbs will start pushing their shoots up. Not long till the first snowdrops appear, I hope.

Christmas bird

Luke has kindly brought Christmas to the wild birds. Sunflower hearts have attracted the blue, great and coal tits as well as the gold, green and chaffinch. Dunnocks, robins, blackbirds and wrens have all gathered around - with our chicks catching the crumbs underneath.(just click on the photo for it to be enlarged).

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Wetter than a duck's.....

A deluge today. Will it ever stop or are we really having the Apocalypse as I type? How is it
possible to have so much rain?
Well, don't worry. I don't expect any answers. I suppose if it's sunny somewhere in this world it has to be raining elsewhere but why does it have to be in the same place for fifteen months? I blame the Ryder cup. Do you remember it was held in Wales a couple of years ago? It proved to the world how wet this country could be and it doesn't seem to have stopped since. Enough already, damn you!
The chicken's house has sprung a leak, the rat has decided enough is enough and has moved to somewhere drier (thank goodness) and Jack's cat is taking refuge in our wood store.
Although I planted some very late (and extraordinarily cheap) tulip bulbs last week I have not ventured outdoors since and doubt I shall be doing so in the near future, save to get more wood for the burner.
The saving grace is that it's ideal weather to sit indoors and spy the numerous birds on the numerous feeders.
We have had eleven birds on one branch which is lovely to watch. Blue and Great tits, Gold Finches, Dunnocks and even an occasional Robin. We've also had sweep bys from the Sparrow Hawk, an occasion guaranteed to send the birds into hiding for several long minutes until they think the danger has past.
Last weekend, at my Mum;s house we watched a Sparrow hawk crash into the pyracantha and as my Dad said, "Everything has to eat".

Tenembaum

This weekend we are out gathering greenery for our Christmas decorations. Foolishly, last year I pulled up the hideous hallway carpet we inherited with the house and relished what a lot of stripping and sanding was involved in getting the natural look I desired. But the scuffed and paint-splattered floor lent itself well to the shabby chic look that I could get away with using soft candle light and a mass of foliage swagged up the bannister.
This Christmas we have freshly stained floors and newly painted banisters so I'm loath to risk messing it up with my usual festive decorations. I may just get a big jug of greenery and leave it at that but it's so easy, once I'm in the Christmas mood, to go all out. I shall consult the oracle (Luke) on it and see what he says but after the ten month DIY project that my carefree act of carpet removing caused I'm sure his words will be, "Leave it alone!"
At least we can put up a Christmas tree together.

The finches have benefited from Luke's early Christmas present to them; a sunflower feeder. He added it to our collection of peanut, bird seed, Niger seed and fat ball feeders and within three days it was empty! Mind you we did catch a squirrel dangling from the overhanging branch to help himself!
Well, it's a cold week and every thing has to eat.

Wreaths and swags.

In a fortnight's time I shall be raiding the hedgerows, taking care not to take anything with berries on that could feed the birds. It'll be time for me to find some braid or a length of rope that I'll tie in swags on the handrail of the stairs in order. to fix stems of holly and confier branches to before adding glowing baubles to give it some colour. I can add artificial berries to. Along with a bowl of clemtines and some scented candles it should feel quite festive and take our mind of the continual rain. Merry Christmas everyone.