How was it for you?!

I mean of course Christmas.  I hope that you all had an enjoyable day as did we.

We had a quiet Christmas here just the two of us which in view of the boiler works was probably just as well as I would never have had chance to be baking mince pies and icing cakes and so on with the work going on till Wednesday lunchtime and being followed by my having to put everything back where it belonged and do some chores which I hadn't been able to do earlier, with  Mr M working on fitting the shelves in the cupboard where the boiler is sited which now didn't fit in the same places it was Christmas Eve before we were actually back to normal here.

The Wanderer didn't come this year, she is off to Vienna for the New Year weekend to stay with friends and the trains are always very disrupted anyway over the bank Holiday due to engineering works and so on and she decided to stay at home and is today and tomorrow volunteering to do an afternoon shift (3 - 11 pm) for Crisis at Christmas.  She said she would have done yesterday but there is no public transport on Christmas Day and she didn't fancy cycling home at 11.00 pm especially if it was raining.

Mr M's sister who often comes to us for Christmas also decided to stay at home alone this year and as she had the horrid cold virus I had recently it was again just as well.

We had the little tree decorated and enjoyed a roast chicken lunch using the best cutlery and the Christmas tablecloth we had bought in Germany many years ago and with Mr M's mother's china candlestick in the middle with a gold candle lit.  So it really wasn't all Bah Humbug here at all.

Today though I felt the need to go out for a breath of fresh air and the photos show my walk through the woods and onto the main road where I knew I would find daffodils in bloom.  Fancy coming with me?

Up through the wood and turn right instead of left as I usually do when going to the post office.

 We come out onto the A30 normally a busy road but as you see quiet this afternoon.

As was the A3088, which links the A30 with the A303 one of  the main routes from London to the south west - I don't remember ever seeing it like this long enough to take a photo! Let's walk down this road...

...as a little further along there are hundreds of daffodils in bloom alongside it.

 Looks more like Easter than Christmas doesn't it?

 We'll walk back up the road the way we came but on the pavement side this time.

 It's very muddy in the wood so it is necessary to wear wellies!

The birds were not bothered though and were singing as if they thought it was spring and the wind was tossing the tree tops .  I tried to film a little video so you might hear the birdsong but the noise of the wind was so loud it spoilt the singing somewhat.  You will have to imagine it for yourselves!

 Nearly home now that's my house through the trees...

 Whilst wearing my boots I decided to have a look round the garden and discovered these hellebores hiding in the undergrowth.

 

And several brave little clumps of primroses too.  Time now to go indoors and have a cup of tea feeling much refreshed after our walk.  Where to tomorrow?

A January walk

I've been on a bit of a retreat!  My laptop which I told you about here and which I had eventually got to grips with threw a wobbly just before Christmas and I could neither shut it down properly nor turn it on and thought it would have to go back to John Lewis under guarantee.  As my nearest John Lewis is in Exeter it was likely to be a couple of weeks or more before I would be able to take it.  I took this as a sign and decided to give up on using a computer so much although to give up altogether would not really be feasible now that my friends all know I can be e-mailed and I speak to a French friend on Monday mornings via Skype but I decided that a 3-day week (Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays) might be sufficient and give me more time for other things which has indeed proved to be the case.  It's been more like the old times using the computer only to e-mail friends and for Skype and I have not felt inspired to write a blog post nor to spend much time reading those of other bloggers either I'm afraid - sorry!

However now that the computer is feeling rested - it ran down completely since it couldn't be shut down properly and then Mr M had a look at it and it seemed to be OK - to tell the truth I was half hoping it would stay in the cupboard for ever - and having just returned from a walk which I thought you would like to share here I am again.

 It has been very chilly today and the frost hasn't melted all day in places where the sun didn't get to it but the sky has been blue and the sun shining so having some letters to post to France and not having the appropriate stamps I set off to walk to the post office going the long way round.  I set off up the hill towards the A30  This is a busy road and I seem to have managed to capture it with only two vehicles on it here!

At the top of the hill I joined the A30 which I walked alongside for a while and then turned off  here.  The noise of the traffic was soon left behind as I walked along the sunken footpath ....

.... listening to the birds above and noticing this tiny violet in bloom in the bank.  Yes I know you will need your glasses on to see it but it's these little things which always get my attention!

I wondered what the view would be from here and clambered up the bank to find out.....

... and was glad I had as it was lovely!

 After a while I came to these steps and once again wondered what the view would be so climbed up for a look....

 ...and once again was glad I had.

 It was so peaceful down in the shelter of the path and I stopped for a moment to look up - not wise to continue walking on a path like this if not looking where one puts one's feet- as I could hear a robbin singing above me.  This was such a moment of santosha - I was absolutely in the moment just me and the peace and the birdsong that I actually said out loud "Thank you God"!! 

See how the yellow catkins are already on the trees too.  The path eventually comes out onto a residential road but still quiet and peaceful and I continued on my way eventually coming out at the post office on the busy main road.  Having posted my letters I made my way home via my usual route through the wood - no pictures here as by now the sun was lower in the sky and it was all in shade though....

 ... the town was still in sunshine. 

Monday afternoons for the past 5 or 6 years have always been my time to don my volunteer's hat and go and visit an elderly partial sighted lady on behalf of Somerset Sight but since she has been moved to a nursing home which is a round trip of 40 miles instead of the 3 miles I used to cover I now go every other week which is how I was free today to do this walk.  My thoughts went to last week when I visited the nursing home and to the contrast between that day with all those old dears (some may not be any older than me of course!) sitting in their armchairs waiting for someone to bring them a cup of tea or to take them to the toilet, two televisions on which nobody seemed to be watching (why do they think old people want to sit in front of the television all day I wonder?  It would be my idea of hell!) many without visitors and today when I was free and able to walk in the countryside and I thought that if I ever get to the point when I can't put my coat on and go for a walk then I'd rather die than spend my last years institutionalised like my friend Rosa who hates it too but has no choice!  I thought then of my great aunt - my maternal grandmother's youngest sister - who had lived in the house in which she had been born and lived most of her life which had no electricity, no mains water just the pump outside the back door and no mains sanitation either let alone an indoor toilet or bathroom.  She was a sensitive soul I think and when she died I inherited some exercise books filled with poems she had written - not particularly good poetry but she obviously liked to write - so maybe that's where I get the gene from!  I often think of her sitting by the range which was her only form of heating and cooking on a dark winter's evening with no more than a candle or maybe a paraffin lamp and wonder whether her last years might not be preferable to Rosa's even though she is at least warm and dry and there is light and even if having electricity does mean all day television! Perhaps if I ever reach that point I will think differently but at the moment it is my one fear, needing to be in a home one day and I remember my great uncle (brother to the great aunt I am speaking of ) saying how he feared ending up in the workhouse so I guess it is not something any of us would choose!

However I will not dwell on such things but rather think of the dainty little violet and my moment of pure santosha listening to the robin's song this afternoon and let the future take care of itself.

Hope

Today marks the beginning of winter with the shortest day of the year.  We know that we will probably have many weeks of cold dismal weather to come and yet there is also cause for celebration since from now onwards the days will gradually get longer and lighter which is always hopeful.   On the subject of hope I took the above photo yesterday just a short distance from my home!  If the daffodils are in bloom can spring be far away?  Well yes it can but I am kidding myself that it is just around the corner!

 I had walked up through the wood to the local post office with the last couple of cards - they probably won't arrive in time for Christmas now but maybe they will serve as New Year cards!  The sun was peeping through the trees as I walked and the birds were singing as if they thought Spring had arrived as it was quite mild too.

 Having posted my cards I walked back along the A30 instead of through the wood the way I'd come to where I had seen a few daffodils in bloom when we passed in the car a day or so earlier and I wanted to get a photo and here they are nodding their heads happily.

Leaving the main road I walked back into the other end of the wood and made my way home.  The view between the trees was beautiful with the sun shining on the distant countryside.  I'd been feeling a bit blue and stressed for some reason but my walk and the sight of the daffodils soon had me in a more cheerful frame of mind I am glad to say. 

In spite of the daffodils it is beginning to feel a lot like Christmas here and yesterday I put up an outdoor tree, alongside the front door, I'd made from an idea I'd seen in a recent Landscape magazine.  Not sure I like the trunk though as it looks like a ladder - maybe I should remove it since the one in the magazine didn't have a trunk being just a simple triangle.  I am also not sure if it might look a bit naff instead of my usual wreath on the door but I thought it would be a change and the wreath makes the hall a bit dark as it hangs over the glass in the front door.  Oh well it's only for a couple of weeks anyway and then it can come down if not before as the ivy may well shrivel and die before then.

In case I don't get chance to post again before the 25th I wish you all a peaceful, healthy and happy Christmas however you are spending it.