Here we are again!

Happy 2021, everyone! I trust you all had as good a Christmas period as could be expected under the circumstances. It certainly was an unusual one and, hopefully, one that won't be repeated next year. My birthday and E's birthday were similarly affected. Thank goodness for Zoom is all I can say.

The UK has now gone into Lockdown #3 and the novelty has well and truly worn off. January is normally the month when people hit the gym in an attempt to work off the excesses of the festive period. Not so this year. Apart from our daily Government sanctioned exercise, we are stuck indoors getting progressively more unfit and, presumably, more susceptible to the effects of the virus. 

I received a letter from my GP this morning inviting me for a flu jab. I've always refused in the past on the basis of there being more deserving people. This time I wanted to ask why, if they had time to stick a needle in someone's arm, it wasn't with the Coronavirus vaccine? Obviously, being English, I didn't. So, on the basis that I don't want influenza (only had it once in my 20s and it knocked me flat for a fortnight) and Covid simultaneously, I will go along in 2 weeks, stand in a car park and await my turn. R isn't going - his argument being (and it's a reasonable one) that if we aren't allowed out we are more likely to catch something at the surgery. Still, it's a trip out and there are precious few of those at the moment! :O)

I've a few photos from 'the Christmas that is best forgotten'. We attempted to do secondhand or homemade presents again this year. It was trickier though; partly because the charity shops were closed for a lot of the time but also because people's creative mojo disappeared along with our liberties. You would think that having all that time at home would have helped but it just left us feeling a bit 'Blah' about it all. The gift photos are here as a reminder to myself, so I hope you will forgive me for posting them.

There are also: some photos of our walks; a reminder of a trip to the theatre that we miraculously managed to sneak in before they closed them again; a photo of my cosy memory blanket that grew during December thanks to the yarn from Barbara's wonderful advent calendar, and a photo of my kitchen dresser as a reminder that I have started spring cleaning early this year - it's a way of keeping my mind off the bigger picture!

My dresser - it may not look it but it is considerably cleaner than it was!:

 

My Cosy Memory Blanket - the top 2 rows and the 3 squares on the left of the row below are from Barbara:

My Christmas Eve cast on in West Yorkshire Spinners 'Silent Night':

My Christmas jigsaw from L. I'm finding this VERY tricky. I'm hopeless at jigsaws, being completely incapable of holding a shape in my head. This one, apart from the birds, is a sea of cream and green, so I can't rely on the design. Apparently, L's reasoning was that she would be home to help me with it.  :O(  To be fair, the one I found for her was a picture of sprouts; just sprouts, all green ...... and it was double sided! She also made some chilli jam and pannetone (both delicious).

A yarn bombed phone box on our Overton walk:

Picnic lunch view. We have specialist equipment for maintaining dry bottoms whilst sitting on the ground - a couple of plastic bin bags that we shove into the side pocket of the rucksack. It's all very high tech around here!

Donnington Castle on New Year's Day:

Bagnor Hill - it was very cold but at least the mud was frozen! :

Aldermaston Wharf:

Ashdown House:

Birthday presents from E. If you haven't read it, the book is adorable - very reminiscent of Winnie the Pooh. The tea is also delicious: 

Coombe Gibbet walk:

Soap nuts from E:

Along with a muffin mix......

.....and ginger and pecan chocolate bark (Yum!):

Underglazes from R . I have tried them out on a pot but failed to take a photo and it's too dark now. Maybe next time ...... 

.... and a new squirrel-proof bird feeder:

Also, some yarn. Actually, I ordered these and gave them to him to give me on Christmas Day! The Alegria yarn was one of the ones in my advent calendar. I liked it so much that I asked Barbara if she could remember the name (she could!) and then ordered a skein:

Bampton walk:

A red kite in the garden:

Our trip to The Watermill:

My money plant (Jade plant) flowering:

And finally, a green woodpecker on the lawn:

Well, that's all from my camera for the moment. On a serious note, my heart goes out to everyone who is struggling in any way during the current restrictions; for many they will be devastating. I truly hope that the repercussions don't turn out to outweigh the benefits.

Happy New Year, my friends.

Toodle pip for now. x  

The Silence of the Birds

The weekend before last saw us taking a trip to Winterbourne Downs, a nature reserve near Salisbury. It was R's idea - he looked up places of interest online and I went along with it and made a picnic.

 I'm not sure what I had in mind really; probably something along the lines of Slimbridge Wetlands Centre, with lakes, numerous hides and birds aplenty. Not so! The 1 'hide' that we discovered was a wall near the entrance that resembled one of those saloon door style affairs, revealing faces and legs below the knee. I'm not sure that the birds were fooled! A family was there when we arrived and we patiently waited, maintaining our social distance, until they had finished. There was talk of green woodpeckers and we tried to look enthusiastic, despite having watched one in our garden that morning over breakfast. To be fair, anything would have been exciting. I'm not sure if it was the time of year but the birds were conspicuous by their absence. 

There was a field that had been planted with various bird friendly plants - linnet and the like - but again, winter didn't show it at its best. We plodded around the marked route. The views were pretty but there were midges galore. Eventually we sat on a handy bench and got out the picnic. R pointed out a crow in the distance! It was only when we sat down that we realised what was wrong. Apart from the distant noise of some traffic, there was silence; no birdsong whatsoever. Neither of us could remember the last time that had happened and it lent a strange sci-fi atmosphere to the picnic. 

After lunch we walked around the perimeter of the reserve. Suddenly, we heard them - birds! Sadly, not within the reserve but in the trees in the distant field. The highlight came when we were returning to the car, when we spotted not only - wait for it - a robin but also a  spotted woodpecker.   Again, common garden birds but we took what we could get! Maybe we will return in the summer when I'm sure it will be much better. 

Other trips out and about this month include:

A return to Chawton in Hampshire (home of Jane Austen) to redo the circular walk we did earlier in the year. I love the cottages overlooking the church in the nearby village of Farringdon:

Massey's Folly in Farringdon. Thomas Massey was the rector in the village for 62 years. He spent 30 years building the folly, just him and a single bricklayer. The purpose was unknown, but it has since been used as a school and village hall:

Fyfield Down Nature Reserve with burial mounds and sarsen stones:

View from our picnic spot:

Ludgershall Castle. Constructed in the late 11th century, it was later turned into a luxury residence by King Henry III:

Other happies include:

A Christmas wreath. I usually make one but thought I'd support our local market this year:

Lighting the Advent candle. Bought from Winchester Cathedral earlier in the year:

Enjoying the Winter sunrise - photo obtained by hanging out of the bedroom window!

And last, but definitely not least, my Yarny Advent Calendar that I swapped with Barbara from Coastal Ripples . This has brought me such joy after, what has been for all of us, a truly ghastly year. I really look forward to opening my daily festive packet. At some point during the day I can be found, cup of tea at my side, using the yarn to add a square to my cosy memory blanket. It is definitely one of my daily 'trio of blessings'.

As well as delicious tea, Barbara has also included some seaglass - I do love a bit of seaglass......

..... and some periwinkle shells. Such gorgeous touches from her beautiful island of Jersey. I have added them to my bowl of treasures where I keep fossils, crystals, special stones etc.

 

Here is my cosy memory blanket. The top row and the 3 squares on the left of the row below are from Barbara. I love them to bits!

With the bits of yarn leftover, I am making up a magic ball so I can add them to my crochet scrappy blanket in the New Year. I don't want any to go to waste.

Well, that's all for this week. Probably this month too, as I'm not sure that I will get around to posting again this year. We're off to get a Christmas tree this weekend and then - great excitement- we have a theatre trip to see 'A Christmas Carol' at The Watermill; I can't wait!

Wishing you and yours a happy holiday season and here's to a brighter 2021!

Merry Christmas. xx

A Gallstone of a Year

I'm an early riser and, every morning at 5 to 6, I listen to Radio 4's 'Tweet of the Day'. It is a moment of quiet sanity before the usual trauma of the 6 o' clock news. By far my favourite presenter is Samuel West, the actor son of Timothy West and Prunella Scales, who recently triumphed as Siegfried Farnon in the remake of James Herriot's 'All Creatures Great and Small'. His descriptions of the bird calls are sheer poetry and this post's title is a misquote from his recent programme on the Eider duck. In it, he described the 80s as being 'a gallstone of a decade'. In his teens at the time, and worrying about the cold war, he decided that what he would choose to do in the event of a 3 minute warning, was feed some ducks. Speaking as someone who feeds the numerous ducks in our garden on a daily basis, I can only agree that as choice of final activities go, it's not a bad one. Incidentally, his description of the noise the eider duck makes was 'like a coven of Frankie Howerds, gossiping round the village pond'. Not only is this hilarious, but also uncannily accurate. You can listen to the call  here and judge for yourself.

2020, I think we can all agree, has been a bit of a gallstone as well - and having undergone a cholecystectomy many years ago, I feel quite qualified to make the comparison. I have noticed that my blog posts have become few and far between. This is not only because we have ventured out less and done far fewer exciting things during lockdown, but also because my mood has meant that I haven't had the inclination to write more. Today though, I am forcing myself. The camera is filling up and I want to clear it and start afresh.

Here then is a photographic representation of the past few weeks chez nous. It's not terribly exciting I'm afraid, but it's the best I have at the moment:

Trying to capture a photo of the green woodpecker on the bird feeder. As you can see, I failed miserably!

Glazing my 'Autumnal Man'. I'm reasonably happy with it given the glazes that were available and, if nothing else, at least it emerged intact from the kiln. I have named him 'Mabon' after the pagan festival that takes place around the Autumnal equinox. It's all about reaping what you sow - both literally and figuratively. 

A Sunday walk around Whitchurch:

Candle making on Diwali. The timing was purely coincidental. The pots were the first items that I threw on the wheel, so they wobble a bit! The mug celebrates the coronation of Edward VIII, which of course didn't take place. I picked it up at a charity shop for £1; not too bad for a bit of history.

Another walk and picnic, this time around the Durrington Walls settlement near Woodhenge.

The 'Cuckoo Stone'. In the Bronze Age the cremated remains of 3 people were buried in pots near here.

A stonechat. I might like listening to 'Tweet of the Day' but I'm no expert when it comes to bird identification and had to look this one up when we got home.

Woodhenge. A timber monument with 6 oval rings of posts, built around the same time as nearby Stonehenge. Like Stonehenge, they are broadly aligned with the direction of midsummer sunrise and midwinter sunset. Pottery, tools and human remains were found nearby. The posts were of varying sizes and their places are now marked by the concrete pillars seen below.

    'Zombie Land' socks have been finished, blocked and worn.

A little premature, as usual:

I didn't carve a pumpkin for Hallowe'en this year - part of that general Covid malaise again - but we did enjoy pumpkin soup and roasted seeds.

I managed to fit in a visit to Bristol to see E just before the second lockdown was announced. We stocked her up on provisions from the local zero-waste shop:

My orchid has been flowering its little heart out for several months now. There was a period when I was given quite a few of these as gifts and managed to kill them all with monotonous regularity. That was before I realised that they quite like the conditions in the bathroom and, since then, we haven't looked back: 

Re-reading my favourite book. They didn't even manage to spoil this in the 'kill a book' sessions at school. Does anyone else remember those wrist-slashingly awful lessons, where everyone took a turn to read a page? Harper Lee's tale makes me both laugh and cry, and I was both bemused and dismayed to learn recently that it has been removed from the Mississippi school reading list after an official claimed that 'the language made some people feel uncomfortable'. As far as the rating in my book journal goes, there aren't enough stars in the sky.

Walking along the Ridgeway on a beautiful Autumn day:

A walk closer to home at Donnington Castle:

Making vegan banana bread. It keeps surprisingly well and has accompanied us on many a picnic. Recipe to be found here.

A very blurry photo of a deer in the garden. There was a tiny fawn too but it was rather elusive. A few weeks ago our neighbour came round to ask if we had an injured deer in our garden as she had spotted one and called the RSPCA. We hadn't, but have seen it since. Somehow it has lost a rear leg but is managing to get about and feed itself, so I am hoping that it survives. Apparently, muntjac are considered pests, so I imagine that if the RSPCA had captured it, they would not have released it back into the wild and, instead, it would have been killed. As it seems to be managing, and no longer appears to be in too much pain, I hope it's left well alone.

Finally, one of my favourite teas. Rather a strange photo I know, but these were the teabags that E used to get from the dining room when she lived in Wills Hall in her first year at uni. We haven't seen them since, but she found an old one recently when tidying out her drawers and gave it to me. As it was the last one, I kept it for a while and used it when I had a quiet moment to savour it properly. It tasted of Wills.

Well, that's my camera all clear. One more week of lockdown to go before we revert to the tiered system. Stay well and cheerful, my friends. May your tier be low in number and any gallstones few and insignificant.

Toodle pip for now. x