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Friday 20 March 2015

Was that it?




How was it for you?  These pics were taken from the back door this morning - eclipse?  What eclipse?!!  No need for special glasses here we couldn't see across town it was so misty so no sun in view!  No birds going to roost, no odd silence, no nothing really here!! 

Thursday 12 March 2015

Daffodils - Wordsworth eat your heart out!

 Like London buses first no posts and then three come along all at once!

Beside the lake beneath the trees.....

  Fluttering and dancing in the breeze....

 Well actually no - these were alongside a busy main road!


As was this carpet of beautiful crocus/es (what is the plural of crocus?)


Traffic rushing by just a few yards away.

And even in the town centre at the bus stop the daffodils were blooming!  No need to travel to the Lake District to see flowers in bloom eh?!!

Tuesday 10 March 2015

What a difference a day makes!

Another day another walk this time with our neighbours.  We couldn't have picked a better day weatherwise and such a contrast to yesterday's walk.



We left home at 2.00 and our walk took us to East Coker - where we stopped at the cafe for tea and cake and a sit down.  East Coker is the resting place of T S Eliot and is immortalised in his Four Quartets poems.

 
Having enjoyed our sit down, conversation and refreshments we set off for home by now it was almost 4.00 pm - I love the longer days and the fact that you can go for a walk after lunch now unlike in the winter months when it gets dark so early.  I am not sure what these trees are but they turn golden in the sunlight - beautiful eh?




 On the home straight now - that's Mr M and the neighbour with the dog.  Mrs Neighbour and I are trailing behind busy gossiping!

We got back at 5.45 - sun sinking in the west but we'd enjoyed our lovely walk and unlike yesterday we'd stayed dry and enjoyed the sunshine!

I mentioned how important I feel it is for me to be in contact with Nature and came across this lovely poem recently which sums up why I love to walk in the countryside:



The Peace of Wild Things
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
Wendell Berry

Monday 9 March 2015

Walking in the rain!

After several days of bright spring weather today dawned dull and dismal.  I was to meet up with a friend and we hoped to do a walk weather permitting.  Sadly it was raining when we met up at the Broadwindsor Craft Centre at mid-day so we decided to have some lunch and see if the weather improved at all.


After a bowl of carrot and parsnip soup with the biggest chunk of fresh bread I have ever seen, a sit together and a good catch up chat we noticed that it seemed to have stopped raining so we set off  for our walk.  There were snowdrops on the banks along the lane...


... the ones on one side of the lane were all but over whilst the other side they were still fresh  - more shelter on one side I suppose.


 Primroses looked lovely here and there - always fresh looking they looked especially beautiful in the dampness of the hedgerows after the rain.


As you can see there would have been little point in hoping for distant views but the misty effect was beautiful nonetheless.


We had been walking for about half an hour when the rain came down again and after a while we decided to call it a day and make our way back to the village for tea and cake rather than get even wetter than we already were! 

 
Not far now....


Christmas roses and primroses back in the village...

... a quick look round the church and before long we were back at the cafe and divested of our wet jackets and with hair looking as if we'd been through the hedges backwards - having had our hoods up and down - we happily sat over our hot drinks and cake before wending our separate ways home through the fog and wet.

I enjoyed the walk and as long as I don't have to stay wet I like walking in the rain even if the views are veiled in dampness and as I said in my previous post to be in touch with Nature fills a need in me and to judge by many of your comments I am not the only one.

I have the maps and booklets etc out planning this year's Bus Pass Trip.  I am thinking of staying in one place this time and going out from there rather than constantly moving on.  We'll see what transpires!