Me again!

Can it really be 5 months since my last post?  Several of my followers and some of my non blogging family and friends have said that they missed me which was most gratifying - thank you all.

Where have I been?  Well my laptop threw a wobbly and had to go back to the shop still under guarantee.  When I got it back I had lost all my photos (yes I know I probably should have put them on a stick or disk) and everything had been set up quite differently to how it had been before so I was back to square one as I was here.  So as you can imagine I was pretty fed up with the whole idea of computers and blogging and the laptop spend a further few weeks in the cupboard!.  Then by the time I had got it working again I discovered I couldn't access my blog dashboard on the laptop only on Mr M's desktop computer.  Again I thought blow this for a game of soldiers I shan't bother!  But today I finally discovered how to get into my blog on the laptop and here I am turning up like the proverbial bad penny.

During all these months my blogging mojo seemed to disappear and I felt I had nothing new to say anyway so gave it all a bit of a miss.  I did write the occasional blog post in my head but it never actually got onto the blog!  Whilst I wasn't using the computer I didn't take many photos either as had nothing to download them onto.  It's been quite relaxing actually but maybe the time is ripe for me to return to the fold?

So what has happened during my time in the wilderness?  Well Mr M and I went to London for a few days back at the beginning of May and had a lovely time visiting some of the many gardens to be found in London either on foot or travelling by bus - sadly no photos of this trip since they were loaded onto the computer when it all went pear-shaped.

Then later that month I did another bus Pass, Boots and Backpack trip this time staying 4 nights in Totness and going out by bus and on foot each day.  I do have the pics from that trip, some of which I have used to illustrate this post, and will post about it later perhaps along with some other ideas which have been floating round in my brain.. Otherwise it has been life as usual with days here and there and getting together with friends and so on.  We don't seem to have done much proper walking this summer for some reason - must try harder especially with autumn just around the corner.

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!! 

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?!!

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

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!

Fun in the woods and a gift

 On Valentine's day I received a beautifully packaged little heart gift - no not from Mr M although he did buy me a card - but from Ann who blogs over at Love Making Things and who had a little giveaway recently to all those who commented on a particular post.

Inside the little package was this dear little wooden heart - isn't it cute?   Thank you so much Ann - a letter is in the post to you.

I decided to walk to to the post office to post the letter to Ann, as I also had one to post to Australia and it would need to be weighed, and to take the route through the woods, it had been raining this morning and it was very muddy but it was lovely - I noticed the different barks on the trees and the moss and lichen and what with the birds singing and it not being as cold as of late I really didn't notice how muddy it was at all and didn't want to come home!  On my return I passed a granny (I assumed she was his granny by her age) with her grandson a boy of about 6 and she commented on the mud and she said she thought they probably shouldn't have come to which I replied that it was lovely and worth a bit of mud and she agreed that it made a nice change from staying indoors.  I noticed she was holding the lad's hand and wondered why he wasn't dashing about sliding on the mud and getting filthy as boys of his age should!!  Maybe his mother would not be best pleased if he got his wellies dirty.  I do sometimes wonder if there is a generation growing up with no real contact with the natural world and what a lot they miss out on if so.  It's not just knowing that milk comes from cows but how to make dens in the wood, scooping up mud and making it into pies, playing houses or shop in the roots of the trees and learning to whistle with a blade of grass or how to climb trees ripping one's clothes in the process - or am I remembering my childhood through rose tinted glasses?  There is something about being in touch with Nature that fills a need in many of us I think and I fear for those children growing up indoors and not being allowed or perhaps able to get muddy and to play in the woods as I did this afternoon - no I didn't actually make mud pies nor did I climb any of the trees but in my memory I did!!

Coffee in the garden - yes really!

One thing about having double glazed windows and doors is that it cuts out the sounds from outside - sometimes this is a good thing but I love to open the back door when I come down in the mornings just to hear as well as see what is going on outside!  This was the view this morning about 8.30 am - the frost was white but the sun was shining and the sky blue.  We've had some lovely bright days here recently but the north easterly wind has made it bitterly cold but this morning the wind seemed to have dropped and the birds were singing in the wood and all was well with my little world.

I had a wander round the "estate" and noticed that the snowdrops were almost in flower and there were also a few brave primroses in bloom (and a lot of tidying up needing doing too!)

 Back indoors the daffodils I had bought at the Trading Post when I did my shopping there over two weeks ago are still looking lovely and fresh out in the unheated conservatory where I put them on the table so I can see them from the living room.  They wouldn't have lasted long in the house in the warm but seem to be happy out here.

 I also bought these little irises from the same place the following week and they too are looking good.

And the geraniums seem to be happy enough even though the temperature is rarely above 7 or 8 degrees in the conservatory and often almost freezing at night - in the summer when the sun is higher I have to move the plants or they would get burned to death but just now there is no danger of that! The daffodils in the background are the remains of a pot of tete a tetes I bought before Christmas which lived out on the table till recently.  Once they have properly died off I will plant them in the garden.  All these flowers gave a real lift to my spirits and made me feel happy.  I am no Pollyanna and can be a miserable as the next person when I get one of my grey blanket periods but it's hard to be "down" when the flowers and birds are sounding and seeming so bright and happy and there is a real feeling of hope and that spring can't be far away now.

By 11.00 o'clock the sun had a certain amount of warmth to it although the frost remained where the sun didn't reach and when I noticed that the blue bench was in full sunlight I wiped off the damp and took an old cushion and my mug of coffee outside and sat there for 20 or 30 minutes.  Sheer santosha moments as I closed my eyes listened to the birdsong and felt the heat of my mug bringing warmth to my hands, my sleeves pushed up a bit to maximise the Vit D I might get, my mind wandered and for those few minutes I was truly in the moment and at peace with the world!  I checked the temperatures and discovered it was 15 degrees on the bench in the sun and only 5 in the shade.  When I came back into the kitchen there was a welcoming smell of casserole wafting from the oven as lunch was cooking another moment of happiness and I felt a sudden urge to make some flapjacks since the oven was on and they would take but a moment to make.

The washing had finished by then and I put the sheets and towels on the line - I did manage to get a couple of big bath towels dry outside last week in the wind and wondered if the sheets might dry today.  There's something so pleasing about seeing washing blowing on the line knowing that when it comes in it will have that wonderful fresh air dried smell I think.  I really can't imagine not being able to line dry my washing although I know not everyone can. By the way that isn't one of my sheets on the ground but some agricultural fleece in an attempt to warm the soil a little in readiness for the spring planting - looks filthy as cats or badgers seem to have walked all over it leaving muddy prints!

As I write this I have just had a cup of tea - not outside as there is no sun in the garden now - and a piece of flapjack and then fetched the sheets (dry) and towels (still damp) in from the line.  It gets cold very quickly once the sun goes down but it is so lovely to have the daylight till 5.30 or so now.  I don't think I would cope with living any further north where although the summer days would be very long winter would be so dark.

During the time that I haven't been blogging nor using the computer as much I have had more time for other things and have completed a crochet shawl started some months back. I used yarn I bought to make a bolero years ago and never finished!

I have been reading too and this was one of the books I read.  It was a well researched book at times shocking, frightening, horrifying and many other similar adjectives and not an easy read but one that maybe should be read widely as just becuase we don't see or know about what is going on in our world doesn't mean it isn't happening.  The book is about climate change and capitalism and whether or not one shares the author's views there is no doubt that climate change is happening.  There is a blog too under the same name if you are interested.  If you have read it I'd love to know your views as it is a book that cries out to be discussed.

 As a bit of light relief to all this doom and gloom I also read a book I'd bought in a charity shop just before Christmas thinking that if the Wanderer who was to visit then wanted something extra to read it might suit - she didn't read it but I did and I loved it!  It tells a story of a friendship between two very different women. There have been others, books I mean, but none I can particularly recommend or perhaps it is that I can't remember what they were!

Same view at 5.40 and I'd better stop waffling on now especially as it's Sunday today and not really one of my 3 days a week computer days!