Stirring....

Miss Nancy's Garden is coming to life........

Hellebore's in a range of gorgeous painterly colours and bare twigs with just a blush of purple from the Daphne under the apple tree...

Longing....

Five months ago I had just arrived here....in some ways it has flown by...in the case of winter and the cold it has and is still dragging on......

The trees seem to have been leafless and bare forever.....

......the ground one day frozen.. the next a quagmire of mud.......
.

...the glimpses of spring just an blink away.....

....please come soon..I long for the sun......


The gnarled tree roots are in a film....does anyone recognise them!!!

Touching the soul

As you may know ..and given the title of this blog, I walk a lot....it is my only real exercise... but I do walk with one dog or two dogs three times a day.

I have to say with all the grotty weather we have been having the last week the walks have been shorter lately and I have been going a bit 'stir crazy' not being out in this beautiful countryside....

...so thank goodness the sun shined today!!!

and it happened to be my day off work!!!

After lunch The Lodger and I went for a long walk ..much to far to take my ever more frail bull terrier.....

we went by the lake ....watched the coots and ducks who were quite frisky and very vocal....saw the gnarled old roots of ancient trees....

passed by fallen ruins of an eighteenth century folly....

saw the old boathouse..waiting for summer and balmy days on the other shore...

disturbed a man fishing, who was so camouflaged that we almost fell over him..oops!!..

walked into a glade were the snow had nearly melted that had hundreds of snowdrops blooming......

saw a pair of deer and a hare who eyed us suspiciously before bounding off... the deer racing around the skyline of the natural ampitheatre we where in..their silhouettes like a magic lantern show....

watched in awe while three swans flew low over the water, the sound of their wings beating, the air echoing across the lake...I don't know why but swans flying make me feel so emotional and I have to hold back the tears......

as we got back to the car a shower of rain started....two buzzards landed in a tree next to us and above us the faint colours of a rainbow as the sun came through the silver lined clouds....

I can't tell you how wonderful this place is...

I would have shown you the pictures but my temperamental camera was not playing today!!

Day break

Cold winter sun filtered through high watery clouds ...

..pale lemon reflections..

the snow slowly melting....

last years bulrushes stand sentinel..

quiet winter morning....

before life takes over....

peace.

Scottie Dog Antics

Snow!!!! Lets go!!!.......

I Love The Snow......I like to run in it.....

I like to roll this way.....

...and that way.....

and twist......

and turn.....

until I'm wet all over!!!!......

Ahh...thats better!!

What else today..snow!!

Everyone seemed to be off work today because of the snow, I however was not!..I only live about a mile from work so even if I couldn't get the car out I could quite easily walk it in about half an hour.......
But once the chores were over everyone was definitely up for a snowball fight and finding a hill to sit on our old plastic sacks (much better that proper sledges) and hurling ourselves at not a very fast pace down the field!!! Things speeded up once we'd iced over the snow a bit and I can't remember when I last had so much fun while very cold and wet...I hope its still there tomorrow......

I love this old print, I wish our hill had been this high, although we too managed three on a plastic bag.... but our landing was much less dignified that this well turned out trio!!!

I hope the snow made you smile.....