A lovely day

The Greyhound Inn

This last Saturday was my dad's birthday and one of those crisp, cold, bright, sunny days that make winter so much more bearable.  We went to Carshalton, a former village, now swallowed up into south London, for lunch at the pub in the picture above and a walk.  It was busy with a frost fair going on but the crowds were relaxed and there was a good atmosphere.  I am still very tired from it but all in all it was a lovely day.

Tufted duck

The other event of the weekend was reviving my Locke St Cardigan, which had been languishing for some weeks with only the left front left to complete.  Hoping to finish it before Christmas, certainly it is the weather for it at present!

A Time of Contrasts

The news lately has been abundantly dark, full of the terrible things we humans do to one another and I admit I have been finding it hard to deal with at times.  I pray and try not to brood or become utterly overwhelmed and it feels so little.

Meanwhile in the garden the summer continues oblivious, as it as always done, the borders a tangle of blooms and lush green.  It is, as the wonderful writer Ronald Blythe has noted, a growing year: young trees have shot up a foot or more, the roses reach for the sky, the sole remaining raspberry cane performs hitherto unheard of feats and the ceanothus and holly attempt to meet from their separate sides of the lawn.



To sit in the garden and appreciate its beauty as it hums and twitters and flutters with wildlife seems indulgent, inappropriate somehow, like I should not be enjoying that moment when others were suffering so much.  But what does it profit anybody if I did not enjoy that moment, since there is nothing I can do as I am to change matters, once I have prayed and prayed again?





Also thank you for your comments to my last post, try as I might, I cannot get blogger to let me reply, but I do very much appreciate what you have said.

Bosham

I write this sitting, not in the kitchen sink, but on a tiny patio overlooking a fast flowing millstream in the Sussex village of Bosham.  Two ducks have just come by and tried to beg for food, two electric blue dragonflies are dancing over the water, sparrows are cheeping in the bushes on the other side of the stream and a breeze is taking the edge off the strength of the sunshine.  It is a beautiful spot and right now would be perfect if it were not for the machinery someone is using nearby.  Bosham sits at the top of an inlet which forms part of Chichester Harbour, itself a part of a large region of harbours stretching along the south coast with a long history of trading, industry and links with Europe and beyond.  Today it is a picturesque small village rather dominated by sailing and yachting types.

We have been enjoying the wildlife, as well as that previously mentioned there are a phenomenal number of blackbirds living in the village, I have never seen so many in a small area, this leads to lots of beautiful evening singing as they establish and defend their territories.  The birdsong is amazing, with wrens holding their own as usual.  We have even seen and heard a nightingale.

Yesterday we went to Chichester to explore, it has retained its Roman town plan so you get a real idea of the size of the military forts and fortified cities the Romans built, even the bend in the road north-south to stop the wind whistling through the city has been retained.  The city is full of gorgeous Georgian buildings, some of which combine traditional Georgian architecture with the local tradition of flint in the walls.

I have put most of my pictures into an album on flickr, I cannot currently work out how to put them in here on this tablet!  So here are the pictures

On the difficulties of photographing bees

The ceanothus in our garden is in full bloom and the bees are in paradise, you can hear them buzzing as they nimbly work from flower to flower.  Looking closer you can see that their pollen baskets are bright yellow and full, so full sometimes that I wonder how they can still fly.  But while the bees are great fun to watch, they are most difficult to photograph, being small and fast moving.  My camera is good, but not state of the art, so it struggles to focus fast enough and accurately enough.


Despite being a failure at its main aim, I rather like this photograph as it shows the problem, the bee appears as a sunlit blur in the centre of the picture, while the camera has focussed on the flowers.



These are probably my best pictures of the lot.  I think I shall have to send my sister out there with her big camera while I read up in the manual of my camera to see if there is anything I can change in the settings to make photographing these amazing creatures easier.



Then my next challenge will be learning to identify the different varieties, I find that a real struggle.

Out like a lamb

As the old saying goes, March went out like a lamb; last weekend was glorious, warm and sunny and I revelled in being able to sit outside.  I also remembered to take my camera out with me and got some lovely shots of one of the robins.  Both were about and I love their trust and curiosity.  They are starting to spend time closer together and yesterday I saw one feed the other.  While I was sitting outside last weekend I was surrounded by birdsong, every bird in the area was singing and singing, I could distinguish the robins, a wren and blackbird, but there were also blue and great tits and a surprisingly assertive dunnock around.  Normally the dunnocks we have in the garden are most inoffensive and spend their time creeping about in flower beds, but this particular individual is not afraid to boss other birds off the feeders.  Watching the birds brings me such joy, it is one of the few times I find myself smiling, broadly and spontaneously.  Anyhow, photos...










One of Dad's beloved cowslips and its red genetic variant







So next time it is beautiful weather and I am sat inside, please remind me how much joy I find outside among the birds and send me outside.

Spring

Although today has been distinctly wintry on the whole we are surrounded by signs of spring.  Our pond was a ferment of frogs last week, at one point we counted twelve in there, which was quite something as it is not a large pond, only just over a metre long at most.  They have mostly disappeared now, leaving the pond full of frog-spawn.  I love spring, watching the cycle of life getting started again, plants appearing, first as tiny green spikes, then emerging into their full identity, small crocuses or full sized daffodils towering higher and higher.  Watching the buds on the trees, there all winter as tiny promises of the renewal to come, slowly swelling and breaking and the bees emerge from their winter quarters and begin to visit from flower to flower.



This has been a good weekend for spring things, despite today's weather, yesterday there were times of gorgeous blue skies and bright, warm sunshine cutting through the crisp breeze.  On my way out I noticed among the many crocuses that have naturalised and are spreading across the front garden most efficiently, one which is striped in purple and white, something I never knew crocuses could do.  On my way home, after dawdling to listen to a blackbird and watch some great tits in the trees - one of them flew close enough past my head that I heard its wing flutter in flight, the first time I have heard that this year - I discovered that crocuses seem to close for the night.  All the flowers had shut in the time I had been out.



We have lots of narcissi in the back garden as well as more crocuses, the occasional tulip, a few hyacinths and glorious clumps of primroses.  I adore the "proper" pale yellow primroses, so sunshiny with heart-shaped petals.  Their cousins the cowslips are beginning to flower too.  Continuing the yellow theme we have sighted a yellow butterfly at the bottom of the garden, probably a brimstone I think.



Everywhere is new life and this morning's great excitement was the news that we once again had two robins, our robin has been doing some valiant singing recently hoping to attract a mate.  There were two robins in the garden in January but it was probably a bit too early for them to be together and one left again.  So we have high hopes of baby robins come the summer.  However, there have not been as many goldfinches around lately, I hope the robin's aggression has not scared them off.



My knitting is keeping with the spring theme too as I am now on the top shaping of the Peerie Flooers hat by Kate Davies, the decrease sections do take some concentration and I have been back re-knitting most rows at least once.  But the finished result is looking beautiful and most spring-like, the Rowan Fine Tweed yarn is gorgeous, with a wonderful lustre.  Hopefully it will be finished soon and my head will match the spring around me.

Seasonal bewilderment

This unseasonably warm weather has caused the garden to be a profusion of flowers and unseasonable new growth, so that alongside more usual sights there are also fresh nasturtiums coming up, summer flowers still flowering and even supposedly spring flowers putting out fresh flowers.


Next door's apples ripening in profusions


Holly berries ripening, we shall be unlikely to have any left by Christmas for the Christmas pudding given the birds' appetites.


The roses by the pond, although they have flowered in mid-winter before, they have a natural enthusiasm.


Summer flowers and foliage


A hoverfly on a poppy


More poppies in waiting


And lastly some enthusiastic primroses