Today, I could almost imagine what a Summers day might be like.
Whilst things are starting to ‘colour up’ around here, it is happening very slowly, everywhere is incredibly dry. We’ve not had any ‘April showers’ of note, as the farmer put it the other day, ‘Its not rained properly since it snowed, and all the snow ended up in the lanes not the fields.’ He chain harrowed the field the other day, it was biscuit dry and the tractor was trailed by clouds of dust.
I don’t think it would take much to start a moorland fire.
We’ve taken delivery of an SLR camera at work this week, a NikonD3100, I’ve brought it home for ‘field trials’ the photos here are taken with it.
I’m still here, I had a little bit of business to attend to down in Nottingham last week, then we had, wait for it, something that passed for a pleasant weather for being in the garden. I was so excited. There is much to be done, with everything that happened last autumn, the garden certainly didn’t get to put to bed for what turned out to be a long and harsh winter.
There are cheery little survivors though
I was more hindered than helped in my endeavours by Spud the dog and the kitten cats. Spud was impatient to play ball,
The kitten cats just wanted to be in on the action.
Trashing a neat pile of clippings for the bonfire and spreading them all over the lawn
A selvedge of snow still remains, banked up against the drystone walls, it lies in dips and gullies (or ‘gips’ as I used to call them as a child, no point wasting words when you can blend).
There are lanes that are still full to the brim, some with cars still entombed! Our lane was cleared of snow this afternoon, by man in a JCB digger.
Tom has returned home from a geography study trip to Iceland*, it has been warmer there all the time he’s been away than it has here. How silly is that. On his return he said how ‘green’ everything looks at home, but this is only in comparison to Iceland, not ‘as it should be’, at this time of year, in this part of of the world. It is dire for livestock.
Here are Joe and Spud on our walk on Sunday
Mr Uphilldowndale wanted to show me some mine workings that have ‘opened up’ recently: as a child I used to play no more than a stones throw from here.
My Mum has said for over fifty years that she is convinced the loud crash she and a friend heard one summers evening could only have been to do with the old mine workings, of which there are many around and about, both coal and lead. It’s not really what you want at the bottom of the garden.
* I’ve been envious of Tom, I went to Iceland in the early 1980’s with my friend Bob’s-mum; it seemed a bit off beat for a holiday destination back then. I loved it, however unlike Tom, I didn’t get to swim in The Blue Lagoon, or see the Aurora Borealis… sigh.
Well you can guess who has enjoyed this weather, Spud the warrior dog with his icy breast plate.
The rest of us may be finding it all rather difficult, not Spud the adventure dog
I know that in many parts of the world, this amount of snow is not a big deal. But it is here, and so late in the year, I’ve not seen this much snow in the lanes since my childhood
(which wasn’t 1947 since you ask). It is the winds that have caused the drama, Tom and Mr Uphilldowndale spent hours digging out the lane yesterday, it was all back again in a few hours. As Tom wryly noted, it won’t stop filling in until every field east of here is empty of snow or the wind drops.
We went to visit Mrs Bee and her boys, they are not very happy. Mrs Bees road is worse than our lane, it is not going to plough out, it will be a snow blower, digger or a long wait for it to thaw.
We took emergency supplies of cheese and wine (essential do you not think?) and Tom helped carry a bail of hay for the farmer whose sheep are in the next field. Brownie points all round.
The space between these two drystone walls is the road, the walls are about five-six foot high at this point, full to the brim.
I’ve been keeping a low profile this week, it’s week two, of gnawing tooth ache. A couple of trips to the dentist, painkillers a plenty, plus a course of antibiotics and oil of cloves and I’m not sure the end is yet in sight. I’m feeling rather weary of it.
Today we have been sat well and truly on the snow line,
we often are, live in a place long enough and eventually a pattern emerges. It has been bright and clear, but with a very sharp, bitingly cold wind. No way was I taking my ultra sensitive tooth out side for a dash of photography, oh no: I can wince at the mere thought of it, it is bad enough having cold air blasted on each tooth in the name of a diagnosis (it gave new meaning to the expression ‘upwardly mobile’!)
Photos taken from the bedroom window are as good as it gets today.
A few minutes later, a squall of snow flushed through the valley and finished the show for the day.
Not really the further adventures of Spud the dog, but we thought you might be pining for him, so here he is surveying the state of play of any remaining snow.
A little left under the walls. But the temperature remains chilly.
Mr Uphilldowndale tipped me off that there were some very blog worthy icicles over the hill. In fact he insisted we go take a look this morning before breakfast.
Tucked away in a deep clough, that sees not much in the way of sunshine at any time of the year. The icicles have formed from water that oozed from between the rock and roots,
dripping on to vegetation they seem to defy gravity at times; the Circ Du Soleil of the icicle world
as the growing weight of ice shifts the centre of gravity.
And the icicles head off in a different direction.
Splashes of water on moss, freeze before they have chance to soak away.
I feel this one has a touch of the Dale Chihuly about it.
