Gentle rain today after all the sun, the lawn will be a foot taller by tomorrow!
I'm a tad jealous, one of the early cherries down the road is starting to flower. I used to have two of them and they were cute when they were small and young - they're the ones with the small pale pink flowers that come out before the maroon leaves. Unfortunately when they get big they suck up all the light.
Such a beautiful day today and at the nearby Church their bank of daffodils looked a picture as I went past ...
There were signs that people had been out with the lawn mower, which still seems early to me but needs must. Who are we to argue with nature? If a lawn grows it will need cutting!
Cherry blossom trees are looking good to - all different shapes and sizes - should have taken a photo to share ...
Jan1 wrote:Such a beautiful day today and at the nearby Church their bank of daffodils looked a picture as I went past ...
There were signs that people had been out with the lawn mower, which still seems early to me but needs must. Who are we to argue with nature? If a lawn grows it will need cutting!
Cherry blossom trees are looking good to - all different shapes and sizes - should have taken a photo to share ...
All the best Jan
Same here wall to wall sunshine cool but with only a light breeze made for pleasant day same forecast tomorrow
In previous years I have mown the lawn in December. I should have done so this/last year - and in January, and in February, but I was using it to store piles of prunings which I haven't shredded yet. I'll probably end up getting a contractor in with a professional-type strimmer before I can get the mower to it.
Supposedly a hard frost tonight and then the sun will be out again, after shopping tomorrow I'll probably take a trip round some of the villages looking at the daffs and crocuses and whatever else is in flower.
By now, when she was still alive, I'd have taken my mother to see the snowdrops in various local churchyards (she always made me promise to bring her home again and not leave her there!) and up and down the lane to see the primroses and wild plums, and all the buds now bursting on the hornbeams and other things.
Meanwhile I went to Covehithe where I hadn't been for some time, and which got to be too far for her some time in her nineties.
Quite amazing, about 20 metres of the cliffs and sand dunes have vanished into the sea and the tide has almost cut through into the Broad.
There was a stunning male Goldeneye, though it spent most of its time underwater, and a bunch of other ducks and geese and swans, and a big flock of mixed finches mostly chaffinches and goldfinches but including at least a couple of Bullfinches and Bramblings, and very probably some Twite in the distance.
Got talking to some people from a nearby village who were walking their dogs. The mother could remember when the road ended in steps to the beach. The daughter and I couldn't remember the steps but you used to be able to scramble down the cliff. There's a Black Kite in the village which I'd assumed was an escape from somewhere but they were telling me current opinion is it is wild and probably from Germany.
The light was fantastic, wish I'd taken my camera. But as soon as the sun went down the ice warning light came on in the car.
Snow drops are a lovely flower and there are many places you can visit to see them ... "these lovely flowers are among the first to raise their heads in the New Year, when it is warm they release a fragrance. Look carefully at the snowdrops to see their green markings on the inside. Did you know that soldiers were so enchanted by snowdrops that they brought them back from the Crimean War battlefields to plant in their gardens (1853 - 1856)."
It was really like the first day of spring today. I finally finished the pruning by cutting down an Elder bush which self-seeded and in a couple of years grew to be about twelve feet high and nine feet across. It was just coming into leaf and the flower buds were showing already. As I piled most of my prunings through the shredder there were skylarks singing over the fields and robins and tits and things singing in the gardens.
There's a massive rook roost in woods on top of the next hill to the north, and as the sun went down the rooks, along with hordes of jackdaws and probably some crows, were doing aerobatics and landing in the back field until the ground was black, then they set off for the roost, flying low. They congregate in different fields at different times.
I went most of the day on a buttered oatcake with smoked salmon, and several cups of coffee. Had a late lunch of another oatcake with a massive slab of Cheshire Appleby cheese, and an early dinner of a chicken breast roasted wrapped in bacon with a large handful of sprouts and a couple of glasses of Carmenere before retiring early to bed. Got up again around 11 and had some more coffee (it helps me sleep!) and another oatcake and cheese.
I've done the rounds of several other local villages and cottage gardens as all the spring flowers start to emerge. There were some gardens with banks of crocuses up until a couple of years ago when the stream flooded. Now the crocuses all seem to have translocated to the road verge the other side of the stream.
... is it me or does anyone else think that now these storms are being named - there seems to be more of them? This most recent one was Storm Jake and it did through down some rather large hail-stones for a time... and many had worse.
Saw some wonderful banks of daffodils recently, hoping they cope with this more cooler and windy weather!
But unlike Chris (see post above) not seen any bees though
The kettle has been busy, and warming cups of tea have been most welcome.
graham64 wrote:Had a reasonable day dry and lighter winds so not feeling as cold but as usual there's a sting in the tail it's now bucketing down with rain
Hoping for some decent weather Saturday night I'm out on the town with my brother a couple of cousins and some other dodgy characters
Have a great Saturday Night ... hope it isn't snowing ...not been too warm down our way today
I went for a walk on one of the commons, which was sandy and hence relatively dry underfoot. Saw not one but two pairs of bullfinches which are gorgeous birds and not uncommon around these parts, and almost smelled the gorse flowers. The river has been over its banks almost all the way from the estuary through the grounds of the Big House and on to the next village. Hadn't realised it had rained that much. The watermeadows and flood plains work properly when no-one builds housing estates on them. The sheep were a bit pissed off though, haven't seen any lambs yet but there are a lot of very pregnant ewes.
There are plenty of flowers out around the villages, especially primroses, but there's a lot of wheat looking a bit sad and brown, probably all the rain has washed away the nitrogen. Some rape throwing up flowers already too.
That sounds an interesting walk. I only went out locally today but did spot some lovely looking Camellia's, which looked so lovely flowering on the dark green foliage. They do give some nice colour in the Winter and Spring months ... no snow for us but still chilly.
Best day of the year here, all day wall to wall sunshine with only a light breeze could actually feel the warmth of the sun on my back when I went for a short walk.
That sounds great weather, I love this time of and seeing some of the early Spring flowers ... even if for some it may mean grass cutting is getting closer
I thought I saw a camellia today but it was one of those pieris with red leaves. The best camellias were in a garden by the river but they recently rebuilt their wall and put in a solid gate so you can no longer see them.
Today I walked through the park and along by the river through various meadows which are a sort of nature reserve. Not a lot about except people walking their dogs - a few songbirds and some daffs, crocuses and snowdrops, and a bunch or two of celandines. The river was partly blocked by a load of debris caught up in a tree, including a picnic table. It was fairly cold and gloomy but I thought I'd better get out before the next storms hit.
A bunch of lovely spring days. I walked on a different common and heard my first Woodlarks. They look like sawn-off Skylarks and sing from the treetops and in circling flight rather than hovering. Last year they were hard to find, eventually I heard a pair on the opposite side of the road from their usual spot. This year was back to the regular two singing males, plus a third singing occasionally.
Very weird French composer Olivier Messiaen wrote down their song to play on the piano
Also walked along one of the estuaries, the light was superb with just a touch of mist. Nothing of rarity but loads of common stuff, and the switch from winter to spring species has started. Had a long chat with a couple of birdwatchers who like me had lived in a whole bunch of other places before making Suffolk their home. We only moved on as the sun started to go down and it got quite chilly.
Finally caught up on the last of the pruning and shredding, next job and very late is to spread the compost, especially on the bean trench <starts to drool>. Lots of violets out now, but not yet warm enough to smell them, like the gorse.
Council have been round to mow the grass verges. I was tempted to invite them through to do the lawn but they would have mashed up the carpet.
So many people have put daffodils in the verges that the council added great patches of their own, which is good, but I suspect less so for the guys with the mowers.
Gosh, is that the time? I must go get my head back down . . .
Walking on the beach was NOT a good plan, even behind the sea wall the wind nearly flayed all the skin from my face. I went inland where it was less fierce and walked on another common where there were more woodlarks, and on to some marshes but was defeated by a large mud puddle. The sun was beautiful and almost warm, robins were singing from every other tree and pussy willows are coming out alongside the hazel and alder catkins.
Out on another outdoor photography job today, 4 degrees centigrade and a stiff North wind, bloody freezing. I don't know whether it's the betus or old age, but I feel the cold much more these days. Ten years ago I was playing golf in a polo shirt at these sort of temperatures, now I'm getting past it. How long before it's the slippers, cocoa and bed by ten.
I'm trying to make the most of it. Yesterday was dull, gloomy and cold with mist and drizzle. I walked round the town shopping and then went for a prolonged drive looking at the spring flowers. Today didn't look too bad so I went to yet another common but the sun went in and the birds were conspicuous by their absence, probably all hunkered down among the bushes watching reruns on their little TVs. No Dartford Warblers and no more Woodlarks but I did flush a Woodcock and hear a couple of Siskins. As soon as I got home the sun came out again.
Forgot to mention that the birdwatchers I met the other day were Paleo/low carb eaters. There seems to be a lot of it about these days, which is good.
It's the lack of daylight as much as the cold that does for me, I feel like I'm awakening from hibernation even when it's brass monkeys. I'm sure that in recent years the coldest weather comes much later in the year than it used to do.
Posts : 5094
Posts : 3730
Home
