A single swan flying overhead. Starlings fighting over the bird feeders in the rain. A late afternoon walk in the watery sunset with primroses, daffodils and hellebores coming out. An afternoon’s baking with the smell of biscuits and shortbread filling the house while I light the wood burning stove before tea. I actually love this time of year.
Watching six siskins dart about a bare cherry tree in our garden, flirting and flitting round the bird feeders and snacking on loads of seed - every morning this week!
The land will not hold more. Two dustbin sized holes dug to plant two fig trees are brimful of brown water. The figs wait. Culverts overflow. The track streams small rivulets. Brown floods replace a small stream in the gully. Footprints ooze water and cows can’t lie down. Each night rain pours off the roof, it washes a dark stream across the yard from the newly dumped compost pile. Hellebores flower. Primroses flower. The first celandine.
The joy of the lengthening days, saying “Have you seen how light it is?” a lot. Feeling the energy in the garden as green starts to appear all over the place.
The splish splash squelch gurgle of my morning walk in the sodden fields accompanied by the beautiful trillerations from the dawn chorus now beginning in earnest.
There hasn't been anything 'stand out' this week for me really, just more a gentle feeling of spring advancing slowly but surely. I have a little perennial primrose called 'woodland walk' which has unfurled its first flower this week, and there are many emerging buds on the flowering currently. Everything else is just gently pushing on.
The godchildren’s 17 year old cat died this week, just a year and one week after his sister. The 9 year old suggested that February is a cursed month. Maybe, I answered, that is why we have Valentine’s Day right in the middle -- to cheer us in the gloom and dark. And nodding narcissus to remind us that light doesn’t hide forever.
The conference of the spring flowers has begun there are shy bright yellow celandines under spindle trees with pink sworls, nodding snowdrops and cheeky tete a tete whispering together amongst the tendrils of honeysuckle 🌿🍃🌱
My joys this week? Clouds of mini tete a tete daffodils adorning all the beds in my garden, interspersed with hyacinths of a heavenly blue and richly pink hellebores. And “ our”stalwart Robin - in his regular perch in the hazel tree at the entrance to our drive, singing fit to burst every evening at dusk, with the snow moon rising behind him. How something so small can make soooo much noise!! Bless him. Also blood oranges, bright pink forced rhubarb with ginger and clementine cake made with ground almonds. We’ve had quite a few visitors and I went to town!
Amidst rain showers one afternoon, I took myself on a walkabout through my neighborhood park and found a lawn full of industriously engaged robins, one of my favorite harbingers of spring.
Enjoying blood oranges so much this week - sweet, marbled, juicy beauties !
The almost full snow moon hanging like a jewel in the sky lighting up my early morning kitchen x
A single swan flying overhead. Starlings fighting over the bird feeders in the rain. A late afternoon walk in the watery sunset with primroses, daffodils and hellebores coming out. An afternoon’s baking with the smell of biscuits and shortbread filling the house while I light the wood burning stove before tea. I actually love this time of year.
Watching six siskins dart about a bare cherry tree in our garden, flirting and flitting round the bird feeders and snacking on loads of seed - every morning this week!
The land will not hold more. Two dustbin sized holes dug to plant two fig trees are brimful of brown water. The figs wait. Culverts overflow. The track streams small rivulets. Brown floods replace a small stream in the gully. Footprints ooze water and cows can’t lie down. Each night rain pours off the roof, it washes a dark stream across the yard from the newly dumped compost pile. Hellebores flower. Primroses flower. The first celandine.
The forsythia is starting to beam yellowness, while the winter jasmine hasn't stopped yet.
One wood pigeon in the garden has become two.
and last night the owls were hooting as I stirred in the night, they bring me so much comfort and joy.
The blackbird on his high song post at dusk, declaring his territory under the waxing moon.
The joy of the lengthening days, saying “Have you seen how light it is?” a lot. Feeling the energy in the garden as green starts to appear all over the place.
Sodden, just sodden
But there was a kestrel, before the rain set in
Orion in the night sky, guiding our way home through the West Pennine Moors. A cloudless sky in a week of drizzle and damp.
The splish splash squelch gurgle of my morning walk in the sodden fields accompanied by the beautiful trillerations from the dawn chorus now beginning in earnest.
Magpies, cheerfully oblivious to the bird scarers my next-door neighbours have put up to deter them, as they continue constructing their mega nest...
There hasn't been anything 'stand out' this week for me really, just more a gentle feeling of spring advancing slowly but surely. I have a little perennial primrose called 'woodland walk' which has unfurled its first flower this week, and there are many emerging buds on the flowering currently. Everything else is just gently pushing on.
The godchildren’s 17 year old cat died this week, just a year and one week after his sister. The 9 year old suggested that February is a cursed month. Maybe, I answered, that is why we have Valentine’s Day right in the middle -- to cheer us in the gloom and dark. And nodding narcissus to remind us that light doesn’t hide forever.
The conference of the spring flowers has begun there are shy bright yellow celandines under spindle trees with pink sworls, nodding snowdrops and cheeky tete a tete whispering together amongst the tendrils of honeysuckle 🌿🍃🌱
My joys this week? Clouds of mini tete a tete daffodils adorning all the beds in my garden, interspersed with hyacinths of a heavenly blue and richly pink hellebores. And “ our”stalwart Robin - in his regular perch in the hazel tree at the entrance to our drive, singing fit to burst every evening at dusk, with the snow moon rising behind him. How something so small can make soooo much noise!! Bless him. Also blood oranges, bright pink forced rhubarb with ginger and clementine cake made with ground almonds. We’ve had quite a few visitors and I went to town!
Amidst rain showers one afternoon, I took myself on a walkabout through my neighborhood park and found a lawn full of industriously engaged robins, one of my favorite harbingers of spring.