New Year

.....may you find the right path for you and may it lead you to your dreams....................

sweetie!!

...while delivering flowers down a icy lane i came across this little chap......
......a million years ago i learnt to ride on a furry fellow like this.......
....happy memories...........

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our snow has now gone and we are left with slushy mud...joy!!

Greetings!!!

...from me.....and him......may you have joy and peace this Christmas and may all your dreams come true...xx

an extraordinary sight....

today i passed the most amazing sight......i was on a back road....icy and pretty skiddy when as i passed by a field there where four herons.....

.....stood like several rectors discussing last Sunday sermon......

.....i often see a single heron.......
..i have never seen four together.......in the snow.....in the middle of a field.......

...the weather creates a new world...where the ordinary looks extraordinary......
...where the once only glimpsed become common place....every day i see a red kite....
in the summer you see them way up high and occasionally but in this harsh and cold environment they swirl in the path of cars on the look out for road kill.....we have plenty with all the pheasants are hap- hazardley walking in the road into oncoming cars as if they have a built in death wish....

..i looked up the collective for herons....

......it is a siege.......just what we appear to be in at the moment...us against the ice....

stay warm.....xxx

WINTER SOLSTICE

...we are in the bleak midwinter........

snow on snow and frost on frost............

it is magical .........

and cold.........

1. the view from my window..........sunrise..

2.the lodger has given up all thoughts of macho and started to wear his winter coat!! he must be cold.

3.nature still providing food for the birds...

we have turned a corner.............x

twilight....or a walk in the dark...

....I am becoming a twilight person......my day starts in the dark and as we walk...

...............the sun slowly rises ....sometimes into a clear and frosty sky....sometimes hardly lightening the heavy clouds....we are shadowy creatures...sometimes meeting others of our kind
......the well wrapped up dog walkers......whose day does not allow waiting until we can properly see a step in front of us.....we greet each other with a muffled hello and for the regulars a few comments on the coming day and maybe a brief skirmish of a dog or two before we part and disappear into the gloom.....

this is repeated at dusk..more urgency in the walk as the dark fills in.....tonight we had the bonus of reflected light from the light covering of snow...in the distance Beacon Hill....we climbed the road leading up...a sharp incline got my heart beating......only when venturing down did i realise that the road was a sheet of ice.....the lodger tried his best to pull me over in his quest for new and alluring scents that couldn't possibly be missed.....I remained on two feet...and he on four....thankfully.....

cold ,cold,hold ,hold...

the lodger...poor boy..... had a few days in the luxury doggie hotel down the road at the weekend
...heated rooms.......food on demand.......and three kennel maids all looking for a handsome chap to spoil!!!!...tough life eh!!!...as a treat on his release we walked along the canal.....it is nearly frozen right over...the barges encased....a line of smoke escapes from their chimneys....there was one for sale....but I have no sea legs....or even canal legs..!!


....hoar frost on the larch trees in the woods......every year at the moment it seems we are having these long cold spells......

.....it is like a beautiful winter wonderland but...cold, cold.....

...the promise of the sun breaking through...we must hold, hold.....

Hope you are all keeping cosy....xx

monotone...

grey sky
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white earth
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black dog
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the world is beautiful in its reduced palette...

..today i realised that being a carer means having your name tagged on someone elses Christmas card, as though you had become a child again and only worthy of a slight doff of the cap to your existence.....instead of the 'happy yuletide greetings' you have received for the last twenty odd years...i feel i am fading slowly into invisibility .......

grey.....

As the lodger and I walked on the common the other day......the air crackling with frost and ice around our ears...we heard a curious slurping sound..on investigating
this we found the cattle so desperate for a drink they were making ice holes and sucking the pond water out......they lifted their heads to view us....icicles dripping from their soft muzzles.....their black, white and grey bodies perfect winter camouflage .....